A still shot of FAMAS Best Actress winner Heart Evangelista from the film ‘Ay Ayeng’

The films “Ay Ayeng” and “Baler” bagged most of the awards at the 57th Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) ceremonies held on Oct. 18 at the PAGCOR Theater in Parañaque City.

“Ay Ayeng” won five major awards, namely, Best Director for Ed Palmos, Best Actress for Heart Evangelista, Best Child Actress for Jessica Mae Flores, Best Child Actor for Dominico Soriano, and Best Special Effects for Rolando Salem.

The digital film that was screened in Hawaii, Berlin, and Manila a couple of months back is about two friends who returned to the Cordilleras to help deliver their families and the community from poverty.

“The awards are a big surprise to us and we are so grateful to FAMAS,” said “Ay Ayeng” producer Arlax Vaswani.

In accepting his trophy, Best Child Actor winner Dominico said he is proud to be Cordilleran. He added that his performance was his way of showing how talented and skilled the people of the Cordilleras are.   

“Baler,” on the other hand, won a total of seven awards including Best Picture, Best Story (for Roy Iglesias), Best Sound (Ditoy Aguila), Best Editing (Danilo Añonuevo), Best Cinematography (Lee Meily), Best Art Direction (Aped Santos) and Best Movie Theme Song (“Ngayon, Bukas at Kailanman” sung by one of the film’s lead star, Jericho Rosales).

“Baler” is a tale of romance between a young Filipina named Feliza (Anne Curtis) and Celso (Jericho Rosales), a Spanish-Filipino soldier chose to serve the enemies more than the Filipino insurgents who were struggling and fighting for their independence.

The script was based on the historical account of the Spanish Army's last stand in the church of Baler. It attempts to show that prejudice and the ravages of war encompass all those involved regardless of race.

A close runner-up to “Baler” and “Ay, Ayeng” in terms of number of FAMAS Awards nods this year was the digital film, “Paupahan.” These awards were for Best Actor (Allen Dizon), Best Supporting Actress (Snooky Serna), Best Supporting Actor (German Moreno), and Best Screenplay (Dennis Evangelista).

In their acceptance speeches, Moreno and Serna credited independent film makers for buoying the Filipino movie industry.

“It’s good that independent film makers are there to tell alternative stories. Thank you to Gloria Romero (FAMAS Lifetime Achievement awardee this year along with Delia Razon) for accepting my invitation to join the cast,” said Moreno.

Serna, on the other hand, said: “I’m attracted to independent film projects because they are less profit-oriented and they take risks as far as stories are concerned.

“In my opinion, if it weren’t for them, the Filipino film industry would really suffer.”

The 57th FAMAS Awards also bestowed its Posthumous Award on Roland Dantes, the five time Mr. Philippines and Arnis master who died of a heart attack last March 16.

Dantes’s nephew related in accepting the award that action star Robin Padilla once paid for his uncle’s dinner in a restaurant. He added that Dantes, upon learning that Padilla was reviving his film “Totoy Bato” as a TV series, asked the action star to include arnis in some scenes which Padilla agreed to do.  

The 57th FAMAS Presidential Award was given to film director Carlo J. Caparas and his wife, film producer Donna Villa.  

Other winners of special awards that night were Vilma Santos (“Circle of Excellence Award”); Bong Revilla (“Fernando Poe Jr Memorial Award”); Kim Chiu, Gerald Anderson, Kris Bernal and Aljur Abrenica (“German Moreno Achievement Award”); Sarah Geronimo (“Golden Artist Award”); and Gloria Romero and Delia Razon (Lifetime Achievement Award).