Shot Handheld The marquee outside the dilapidated Philippines movie house reads "Family," which is both appropriate

and wildly incongruous. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99906973 Almost forgetting herself, Nayda puts down her basket of laundry and lets her mother
continue up the stairs alone. Then she energetically applies a rag to the red writing. Effacing it is not easy. The camera pulls away a bit, so that we see the full physical struggle of the woman as she rubs furiously at the mark, her body unconsciously simulating the throes of copulation. In another scene, Nayda peers out through the theatre's arabasque facade at a couple of nuns, one of whom stumbles in the street. She almost laughs, and we know what she's thinking: the nuns don't know how easy their lives are or how unreal. Almost upstaging the human wounds in Serbis, however, is condition of the theatre itself. It has aged very badly, and can no longer be kept even reasonably clean. How did that goat get onto the stage? There's a hole in the wall. Worse, the plumbing is failing. At one point, Alan is dispatched to clean out a backed-up men's room. Most of the tile floor lies beneath a thin sheet of dirty water, and, without showing anything actually disgusting, Mr Mendoza confronts the audience with the full horror of incorrigibly clogged drains.

http://www.portifex.com/LArts/FridayMovies/Serbis.htm
This is all shot in a Dogme 95 style, on 35mm

Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera). Optical work and filters are forbidden. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now). Genre movies are not acceptable. The film format must be Academy 35 mm. The director must not be credited.
, explores the nation's identity disorder a condition which manifests itself in the deterioration of the
family, issues around masculinity and femininity, sexuality as capital, the psychological underpinnings of religion and, finally, the cinema as both mirror and creator of identity. From convent to brothel, Mendoza locates history and culture in the movie house literally and figuratively, as it is the film's primary setting compressing and distilling the Philippine experience along its cultural timeline. The absent father has long become both a reality in Philippine culture and a recurring theme in Philippine cinema Pregnancies and marriages become trapping devices, with sexuality, or course, being the driving force. Marriages are imposed, not chosen, as Nayda, the eldest daughter, explicitly tells us. This notion is

underscored in the scene where she asks a gay, married tenant why he chose to marry a woman In fact it is men gay men who offer "services" in the darkness of the movie house. Yet the tension between the female characters and problems of female representation is ever-present. Posters, paintings, and photographs of Filipina women mostly nude create a tongue-in-cheek backdrop, with Mendoza implying awareness for the need to subvert such images. The young daughter is forbidden to wear a red dress; in fact, the Pieda women wear nothing but black, undercutting the "to-be-looked-at-ness" that Mendoza establishes in the beginning. In 2008, the year Serbiswas released, only 30 films were made, rendering the Pieda family theatre a symbol for the struggling industry.

http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0711/abasta_serbis.htm Serbis is a film for the voyeur and the students of homo sapiens in their natural habitat. It is what reality television would be like, if reality television was not in fact so blatantly engineered, manipulated and falsely packaged as non-fiction. The drama unfolds leisurely without any real catalyst or foreshadowing to suggest where the story might go next. The people of this world suffer an internal struggle that never manifests itself into real action to change their circumstances. http://www.lasplash.com/publish/Film_106/Serbis_Film_Review__A_Surprising_Collage_of_Despair_and_Imagery.php

Cinma verite Style like my other films Slingshot (2007), Foster Child (2007) and The Masseur (2005). The events unfold as they happen in real life, seen from the various points of view of the characters involved: Nanay Flor, the proprietor of the movie house; her daughter who takes over the movie house whi le she is away; the various trade boys and hustlers and even the purse snatcher w h o s e e k s r e f u g e i n t h e m o v i e h o u s e f r o m p u r s u i n g policemen.

Film Title (English and original language titles) Serbis, Service

Film credits Directed by Brillante Mendoza Written by Armando Lao, Boots Agbayani Pastor Cast Gina Pareo Jacklyn Jose Julio Diaz ... ... ... Nanay Flor Nayda (as Jaclyn Jose) Lando Ronald (as Kristofer King) Jerome

Kristoffer King ... Dan Alvaro ...

Festival screenings, awards 7 wins and 15 nominations, including Golden Palm at Cannes (2008), Date and place/s of release
France 18 May 2008 (Cannes Film Festival) (premiere)

Any details of box office Opening Weekend: $12,824 (USA) (1 February 2009) (2 Screens) Gross: $63,909 (USA) (24 May 2009) Co-production or funding details Budget: US$350,000 PRODUCER Ferdinand Lapuz has executive-produced several films by Brillante Mendoza including The Aeta Teacher (2006) and

Slingshot (2007). He has also worked as sales agent for a number of independent features in the Philippines, including Magnifico (2004), The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (2005) and Foster Child (2007). - http://www.haf.org.hk/haf/pdf/project08/se18.pdf PRODUCTION COMPANY: Ce n t e r s t a g e P r o d u c t i o n s I n c . i s a g r o u p o f i n d e p e n d e n t f i lmma k e r s wh o h a v e b r o u g h t h o n o r s t o t h e P h i l i p p i n e s through their films which have won awards at many major internat ional f i lm fest ivals. I ts projects include The Aeta

Te a c h e r ( 2 0 0 6 ) , S umme r He a t ( 2 0 0 6 ) a n d T h e Ma s s e u r (2005). Its latest production is Slingshot (2007) which offers social commentary on the lives of the underprivileged urban poor in Manila and was shot during Holy Week as well as during the countrys last presidential election. http://www.haf.org.hk/haf/pdf/project08/se18.pdf he shot [The Film] in two weeks. -http://www.pinoypress.net/2008/05/23/in-cannes-serbis-takes-serious-beating-by-critics/ Any other relevant information The film caused a stir in the Philippines with its unbearably loud ambient noise and its graphic and
seemingly gratuitous depiction of sex and nudity. Submitted to the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board for public exhibition in 2008, the movie survived with two major cuts to sex scenes and was rated an R18.

http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Serbis Synopsis 200 words A struggling family from the provinces discovers that morality can be both absolute and relative as they suffer each others' pains and vices while awaiting the court decision in the mother's charges of bigamy against her estranged husband. The Pineda family operates a ramshackle movie house specializing in second-run sex flicks: 58-year-old family matriarch Nanay Flor oversees the operation while trading shifts in the ticket booth with daughter Nayda, son-in-law Lando, and adopted daughter Jewel, and Nanay's nephews Alan and Ronald paint the billboards and run the projector respectively. It's been two long years since Nanay accused her estranged husband of bigamy, and today is the day that the judge will finally deliver the verdict. Now, as the usual service boys and gay

hustlers start streaming in for the steamy double feature, Nanay attempts to get everything around the theater in order before heading off to the courthouse. It's not an easy task and the money is tight, so when a fleeing purse snatcher dashes into the theater with two policemen in hot pursuit, Nanay knows that this day will be as stressful and unpredictable as any other. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/serbis/ Short synopsis (1 sentence)
A drama that follows the travails of the Pineda family in the Filipino city of Angeles. Bigamy, unwanted pregnancy, possible incest and bothersome skin irritations are all part of their daily challenges, but the real "star" of the show is an enormous, dilapidated movie theater that doubles as family business and living space. At one time a prestige establishment, the theater now runs porn double bills and serves as a meeting ground for hustlers of every conceivable persuasion. The film captures the sordid, fetid atmosphere, interweaving various family subplots with the comings and goings of customers, thieves and even a runaway goat while enveloping the viewer in a maelstrom of sound, noise and continuous motion.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1225296/plotsummary Director (situate within work ) 60 80 words Brillante Mendoza was born in 1960 in the Philippines. His first feature film The Masseur (2005) won the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno International Film Festival, the Interfaith Jury Award at Brisbane International Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Torino Film Festival. His other four feature films have won numerous awards as well, including the NETPAC Award at the Jeonju Film Festival for Summer Heat in 2006; Best Film and Best Director for The Aeta Teacher at the Cinemanila Festival in 2006; Foster Child was an official selection of Directors Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and Slingshots (2007) was an official selection of the Pusan, the Toronto and the Berlin International Film Festivals. http://www.haf.org.hk/haf/pdf/project08/se18.pdf Contextualise the film within its national cinema. Discuss the most important issues we have raised in class as relevant to the film. Is it the first of its genre or theme (500 words) http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0711/abasta_serbis.htm < -

Filipino men and women often grapple for a politics of identity based on models from the United States, yet are goaded by postermodern arguments that identity is meaningless in sexual domains. Many Filipino gay men and Bakla will declare that all Filipino men are bisexual Few Filipino gay men over the age of 30 continue to go out. They seem to disappear, eventually marrying women and setting up families or retiring to semi-celibate life for many reasons as there are older gay men. - Gay and Lesbian Asia: Culture, Identity, Community, Volume 40, Issues 3-4. Gerard Sullivan, Peter Jackson. Many Filipinos are nominally Roman Catholic and will thus agree with statements such as homosexuality is a sin. However, there is also a secular view that looks at homosexuals as a third sex, almost as if homosexuality were innate. This third sex is called the bakla, described as a man with a womans heart. A frequent remark from male sex workers is Trabaho lang (Its just work) Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and AIDS, Peter Aggleton

Critique the film ie what is it trying to schieve? How successful was it? Give your personal response (250 words)

Summary of critical reception (150 words) Received mixed reviews from critics, including a walkout from online critic Kim Vonuar or cinematical.com (Source: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20080522-138164/RPentry-Serbis-stirs-mini-scandal-in-Cannes) The New York Times called it a rambunctious, noisy film. One critic thought it was a shabby piece of video verite from the Philippines and wondered why it inexplicably competed in Cannes. The critic of cinematical.com headlined her review Live from Cannes: Gratuitous Yuckiness (http://www.pinoypress.net/2008/05/23/in-cannes-serbis-takes-serious-beating-bycritics/)