Barber’s Tales award winning Eugene Domingo

Eugene Domingo Barber's Tales

 

I am a huge fan of Ms. Eugene Domingo that I never miss a beat watching her movies. Also known as “Euge” as theater actress, comedian and host. She is very known for her movies usually genre is comedy but this time for Barber’s Tales calls for serious drama. She had won various awards that I myself idolize her pure talent and professionalism.

Just recently, Barber’s Tales held a blogcon at Wheatberry Café located at Timog Q.C. This is my first time to meet up close Ms. Eugene Domingo and director Jun Lana. During the interview made me understand that, Barber’s Tales is all about women empowerment. During the old time, women are being discriminated and limited to women duties only. It has been an issue when women will do men work and skill specialties.

 

As a single mom, I support women empowerment that everything that men can do women can also do the same. This is a must see movie for both women and men in the understanding that women are equal and even can excel in the craft and skills for men.

THE STORY

 

Barber’s Tales revolves around newly widowed Marilou who inherits the town’s only barbershop from her husband — a business that has been passed down by generations of men in her husband’s family.

With no other means of support, she musters the courage to run the barbershop. Despite the skills she gained from years of observation and assisting her husband, as a female barber she fails to attract any customers.

Nevertheless, things take an unexpected turn when Marilou discovers what she is truly made of — in the midst of mockery from men, and the support of an unexpected circle of sisters.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

IMAG1172Set at the onset of martial law during the Marcos dictatorship in the 1970s, the conservative setting of Barber’s Tales provides the perfect backdrop against which I explore the social taboos and moral values of the time to tell the story of Marilou, a woman who is caught between old traditions and modern dilemmas. Recently widowed and childless, she supports herself by continuing her husband’s barbershop. But as the first female barber in a male dominated small town, her liberal views and practices are met with opposition. As the entire country is stripped of its basic rights, Marilou must find the courage to stand out and stand up for herself.

As the title suggests, Barber’s Tales is structurally a narrative made up of tales from the barbershop, vignettes about Filipino rural life held together by themes that have personal resonance, including sexuality, identity and self-liberation.

Barber’s Tales is the second in a planned trilogy set in rural Philippines. Each film is a character study about varying kinds of isolation. Bwakaw (2012) tells the story of a grumpy aging gay man who thinks that all there is to look forward to in life is death. Mga Kuwentong Barbero (Barber’s Tales, 2013) is about a widow imprisoned by gender expectations in the 1970s. Ama Namin (Our Father, now in preproduction) follows the plight of a boy who enters the seminary to be with the only family he has left: his father, who is a priest.

Prior to production, Barber’s Tales won 4 awards, including Best Project, at the 2013 Hong Kong Asia-Film Financing Forum, an annual project market for international filmmakers and financiers.

What inspired you to pick the story of a lady barber to tell as the second installment?

Barber’s tales is actually an old screenplay I have been developing since 1997 when it won in a national screenwriting competition in Manila. Thematically, I feel that the story fits in nicely with the issues of identity and choice that I explored in Bwakaw. But unlike Bwakaw, which is very personal and intimate, Barber’s Tales plays on a bigger canvass, and covers the tumultuous years of the Marcos dictatorship, the ramifications of which are ultimately universal and relevant up to now.

Cast:

Eugene Domingo

Eddie Garcia

Iza Calzado

Gladys Reyes

Shamaine Buencamino

Noni Buencamino

Nicco Manalo

Nora Aunor

Daniel Fernando

Sue Prado

Barbers Tales Poster

Cor

About Cor

I am a single mom of all boys. I love cars, food, traveling and anything in between.