Cebuano short film ‘Bato’ng Bunga’ mines from memory, digs into exploitation

MEMORIES. Bato'ng Bunga official poster by Cebuano artist Edd Dampios

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

A grandson turns his lolo's mysterious illness into magical realism in Cebu's lone entry at this year's Sine Kabataan festival

AT A GLANCE

• Bato'ng Bunga is a Cebuano short film directed by Elj Seth Tababa, inspired by his grandfather's life as a miner and the severe skin disease he suffered from due to lack of healthcare.
• The film, shot in Tababa's hometown of Pinamungajan, highlights themes of labor rights, healthcare, and the impact of mining on families, despite not depicting mining scenes directly.
• Tababa aims to spark discussions about the consequences of negligence towards laborers, using his personal memories to convey the emotional weight of his grandfather's condition and its effects on their family.

This is AI-generated. Read the article for full context. Report any errors.

By the premise alone, you’d be fooled into thinking that Cebuano short film Bato’ng Bunga is a fairy tale. After years of labor underground, a miner comes up for air with his skin turned into stone. 

But past the magic is a story translated directly from memory, one lived by a real miner whose body paid the price. 

It’s the story that Elj Seth Tababa, a third-year Cinema student at the University of San Carlos (USC), brings to the big screen at the 9th Sine Kabataan Short Film Lab and Festival. It’s the sole entry from Central Visayas for this year and marks Tababa’s first time directing at this scale.

“I have director friends who could direct this, but it’s different when I tell this story,” Tababa said. “Because these are my memories.”

The memories he speaks about is of living with his grandfather, Geronimo, who spent the sunset years of his life with a severe skin disease caused by his time as a miner.

Tababa could not name the specific condition, as his grandfather’s work provided no healthcare and his family didn’t have the budget to take him to the hospital, even just to diagnose him.

“Hardened na yung skin niya tapos nagpepeel off (His skin hardened and was peeling off),” Tababa said. “Since I was a kid, I always thought para siyang bato (he’s like stone).” 

He looked upon his grandfather’s condition with fear. As much as he could, Tababa would avoid his grandfather, fighting with him when they’re together, and likening him to a stony monster.  

This image stayed with him even after his grandfather’s death in 2015, resurfacing years later when he finally had the maturity and empathy to write it into a script which turned his lolo‘s scales into actual stones.

The stone suit of lead character Gregor was made out of foam and thrifted clothing. Tababa allowed his prosthetics team to play with the design. His only condition was that it should look like shale, a type of rock he’d often see in Toledo. 

Tababa led the production along with Owen Lepiten, who directed Sunog sa Sugbo into three victories, including Best Director, in last year’s Sine Kabataan.  

“I asked myself, ‘Why do I have to do this twice in my life?’” Lepiten joked. “It doesn’t get easier.”

They shot the film in Tababa’s hometown of Pinamungajan, a coastal town with mountainous barangays. To make that vision come to life, the crew worked with the local government unit, which was very generous with their resources: assisting them on location, providing tents and chairs, and even granting them a coaster free of charge.

“It’s not every day that a film is being shot in Pinamungajan,” Lepiten said. “They wanted to engage with something like this happening in their own town.”

The crew is relatively young, students or recent graduates of USC Cinema, but their lead actors have been in the industry for a while now. Gregor is portrayed by Sol Eugenio, while his wife, Lina, is played by Sharon Ceneta, who hails from Manila. Bato’ng Bunga is her first Bisaya-speaking performance.

Tababa relayed his experience of teaching her the language: “Before the shoot, I had to Google Meet with Ms. Sharon, direct how she should pronounce certain words and develop an accent…I also directed her for emotional tone, so it’s not just words for her; they actually mean something.”

In the film itself, Ceneta gets it right. She hardens the vowel sounds that Tagalog speakers usually soften. It is through her dialogue, and her dialogue alone, that we find out Gregor developed his stony condition from working as a miner. 

Originally, Tababa wanted to center his script on the collapse of a mining pit in Toledo back in 2020, one that killed four people and left six missing during Christmas week. The host barangay had filed complaints about the project to the Mines and Geosciences Bureau Central Visayas a year before the incident, flagging concerns for workers’ and residents’ safety.

But he decided to stick with a story he’d actually lived through, remembering the details: his mother’s caretaking, his grandfather’s illness, the fears he carried as a child.

“Because of the negligence of those on top, yung naapektuhan is mga laborers (the ones affected are the laborers),” Tababa said. “I want to spark discussions about labor rights, proper healthcare, and reparations for affected families.”

There’s no scene of mining anywhere in the short film. It’s set almost entirely in a small house on the mountainside. But you don’t need to see the mine to feel what it’s cost this family. Every sacrifice they make to adjust to their grandfather’s condition stands in for a wound that was never really his to bear alone, and never really healable to begin with.

An allegory, a metaphor. Call it what you want. But fiction can only go up to a point. Bato’ng Bunga screens more like a preview: nature, after being allowed to be plundered for so long, is due to take back what it’s owed. 

Tababa described it succinctly: “Ito yung palaging hinuhukay ng lolo ko (This is what my grandfather was excavating). Now, the mountain is trying to get his body back.” – Rappler.com