Palm Grass Hotel remembers 1898 Cebu Revolution with heart-warming film

Palm Grass, Cebu’s only heritage hotel, as part of its Heritage Awareness Campaign, offers a series of firsts to the public in commemoration of the 120th year of the Cebu Revolution vs. Spain.

On May 20, 2018, Cebuanos mark the 120th anniversary of the second phase of the 1898 Cebu Revolution, when Cebu Katipunan leader Heneral Luis Flores regrouped the Cebu Katipuneros after a temporary setback upon Leon Kilat’s murder on April 8, 1898.

This May 20, 2018, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Hawanan Tres de Abril, Palm Grass will hold a special screening of the short fiction film, “Kinasing” by video creator Prospero Laput of Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific Focus Features, in cooperation with Palm Grass Hotel and Cebu students.

This will be the first time in Cebu that a short fiction film would tackle the modern-day relevance of the 1898 Cebu revolution, where a fictional descendant of Heneral Luis Flores meets a lovely puso-maker from Pasil.

Puso, specifically, the kinasing, is the central object in this short film and is used to highlight a historical context and progression.

In this film, the puso-makers are honored in a song based on a poem, that tells about their pains, struggles, dreams and journey towards a better society. Young Cebuano artists composed, arranged and interpreted the song.

In addition, students from two state universities, mga Iskolar ng Bayan of Cebu Normal University and the University of the Philippines-Cebu, are a huge part of this film production as they are involved from writing the script, casting, and crewing the short film.

“It’s a real challenge to organize a short-film production with very fresh talents who either just graduated from school or are still in school.  But somehow community-driven projects like this are getting to be a familiar terrain in my marketing and communications content creation portfolio.  And Palm Grass did an excellent job in organizing the kids into a formidable indie film crew!” says Laput.

In March 2018, Palm Grass Hotel, with UP-Cebu alumnus Prospero Laput of Asia-Pacific Focus Features, led workshops on Motion Graphics and Video Creation participated in by the selected University of the Philippines-Cebu and University of San Carlos students. The workshops were able to produce two videos on the 1898 Cebu Revolution vs. Spain.

Palm Grass, the Cebu Heritage Hotel, is facilitating awareness on the 1898 Cebu Revolution by hosting and leading the community, especially the youth, in creative ways to relive this nearly forgotten period in Cebu history.