The film reels keep rolling as Pinoy Magic Lantern marks its second year

IT'S Popcorn Paradise Part Two!!! After a successful first year, the second year of the Pinoy Magic Lantern Film Club for Kids--or just PML to club old-timers--promises to be an even cooler sequel with never before seen cinematic treats . . . for kids only! (People above the age of 12 must be strictly accompanied by a fun film-loving kid, hehe.)

To give an idea of what's in store for members new and old, PML held a gala on July 18 at Robinsons Movieworld, Manila, the official home of the club for this year. They showed the five short films shown at their first gala last year just to give new members a feel of what Pinoy Magic Lantern is all about. These films from Canada, the United States, Spain, Switzerland and even the Philippines were less than 15 minutes long. The shortest ran for only six and a half minutes! The films showed what one of the club directors, Tita Evelyn Vargas-Knaebel, calls the four basic emotions all movies touch on--fear, sadness, joy and the need to dream.

Sand, Scarabs and others

That's why the kids marveled wide-eyed at the film titled "The Sand Castle" where everything, even the characters, were made of sand. They had the same reaction watching "The Golden Scarab" which told the story of an Egyptian sorcerer whose golden scarab (it's a real insect but in the old days the Egyptians thought it was one magical bug) turned into a lady with dragonfly wings.

In "Juke Bar" the kids couldn't help but cringe at the hundreds of animated bugs crawling all over the real house of a real man. That's quite a camera trick right there!

"Laho," by Pinoy director Fruto Corre made the kids in the audience watch thoughtfully as two friends played on top of a town buried under lahar.

But after that bit, they were clutching their tummies laughing at "The Little Penguin who Wanted to Eat Ice Cream." This was about a silly little penguin from the North Pole who kept asking for ice cream from the South Pole. That's kinda like eating at Jollibee but asking for the sundae cone at McDonald's.

For the kids who joined the year before, PML also premiered "Treasure from Heaven" at the gala. This was a movie from Austria about pals who find a mysterious treasure, are chased by kooky crooks and whose parents try to help but end up not helping at all--making things much, much funnier along the way.

Step right up, make your own movies . . .

Two more feature films are scheduled to be shown to club members this year and for PMLers who want to make their own movies someday, a big filmmaking workshop will be held at Museo Pambata in June next year.

Local filmmakers like Eric Quizon, Fruto Corre, Jeffrey Jeturan, Dragon Pineda (what a name, huh?), Ditsi Carolino and even an Austrian filmmaker named Joseph Koschier have already agreed to facilitate the workshop.

In case you didn't know, the Pinoy Magic Lantern already has more than 4,000 members but there are thousands of other members, all of them kids, in more than 50 Magic Lantern film clubs around the world.

The Philippines is only the 56th country to have its own Magic Lantern Club but it's the first in Asia.

The club gets its name from the French phrase la lanterne magique which is what people called the very first devices used to make movies.

This was long before the words film, movie and cinema were used. Those early devices looked like lanterns with see-through pictures painted on the side. When a candle was placed inside these "lanterns," they would be twirled around and the see-through pictures would be reflected on the surface they touched. People, not knowing what else to call what they saw simply described it as, "magic."

So if you're into some fine movie magic that's--don't forget!--strictly for kids, why not give Pinoy Magic Lantern a call at 436-6255. You can also write to them at 74-B Mapang-akit St., V. Luna Road, Quezon City or send e-mail to pinoymagiclantern@hotmail.com.