ANITA’S LAST CHA-CHA

Ang Huling Cha-Cha Ni Anita

Directed by Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo

Asia Pop! / Philippines / 2013 / comedy, drama, LGBT, romance / 110 mins / Tagalog with English subtitles / DCP

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Watch Trailer

ANITA’S LAST CHA-CHA

UltraStar Mission Valley
Sun, Nov. 9, 2014 7:55 pm

ANITA’S LAST CHA-CHA

UltraStar Mission Valley
Mon, Nov. 10, 2014 6:40 pm

Description

Best Picture, Best Actress, 2013 CineFilipino Film Festival
Special Mention, 2014 Osaka Asian Film Festival
Official Selection, 2014 Frameline Film Festival

Effortlessly charming, funny, and poignant, ANITA’S LAST CHA-CHA has sass-talking aunties, telenovela-worthy plotting kids, and in the midst of it all, Teri Malvar, who plays spunky 12-year-old Anita falling in love for the first time. It’s a bold film both because of the graceful way it weaves hot-button topics such as sexuality, gender, abortion, and aging into a crowdpleaser, but also because Malvar’s performance made waves when she beat “Superstar” Nora Aunor in the 2013 CineFilipino Festival Award for Best Actress. Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s feature film debut is the rare treat of a film with the embrace of a close-knit town and the hijinks that can only come from kids given plenty of space to roam.

Set in a small village in Bulacan, cranky, dress-hating Anita is in the middle of two love triangles, one with her hilariously dramatic peers, the other with a beautiful older woman Pilar (Angel Aquino) whose mysterious return to town has set tongues wagging. The triangles complicate and unfold with a fertility procession and other village dramas in the background, and ANITA’S LAST CHA-CHA brings us the sweet clench of first crushes, sexual awakening, and broken hearts whose pangs are as indelible as adult love. As the audience and the rest of the village understand Anita’s emerging butchness even before she can, ANITA’S LAST CHA-CHA’s ultimate grace note is the way it captures Anita’s beauty as she claims a path true to herself, surrounded by love close to home. –Christina Ree

Co-presented by: Filipino Sun Festival