Da Princess, Lovi: Lovi and the Star for All Season

Lovi straddles indie and mainstream scenes quite effortlessly. She could very well be one of the busiest actresses in Show Town with 1 released movie and 4 more new movies in the works.

Another dream-come-true for her was “Thy Womb,” which allowed her to collaborate with two screen mavericks: Director Brillante Mendoza and actress Nora Aunor.

Thy Womb (Tagalog: Sinapupunan) is an upcoming Filipino drama film starring Nora Aunor, Bembol Roco and Lovi Poe. It was Produced by Centerstage Productions and the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), written by Henry Burgos and directed by 2009 Cannes Film Festival Best Director Brillante Mendoza.

The film has been selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival and has been invited also to Busan International Film Festival in October.

PLOT

Thy Womb examines the opposite fate of two women - the sterile Shaleha (Nora Aunor) and the fertile Mersila (Lovi Poe) - while reflecting on the opposite conditions of life in Tawi-Tawi - a place endowed with natural beauty and rich resources, but crushed by a socio-political crisis. Between heaven and hell, the setting and the suburbs of Thy Womb constantly remind us that there are still unresolved conflicts of the past.

The film focuses on Bangas-An (Bembol Roco) and his wife Shalena (Nora Aunor), a childless aging Muslim couple who eke out a hardscrabble existence on a remote island. They fish by day while Shalena painstakingly sews elaborate tapestries at night and when necessary, serves as the community’s midwife.

The couple must deal with the nearby guerillas who routinely rob unlucky travellers on the sea. Yet these hardships all seem minor in comparison to the difficulties they face in trying to adopt a child. All seems hopeless, until Shalena makes a startling suggestion: that Bangas-An should take a second wife capable of giving him a child.

Shot in a strict realist style, Thy Womb is on one level a record of this tiny, isolated community’s daily existence, attentively capturing the minutiae of their unique way of life. There’s a sense of timelessness to these moments, which makes the incursions on the community from the modern, outside world all the more powerful and disturbing.