Oct 25, 2023

Philippines Submits "Missing" for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

The Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) has entered the rotoscope/2D hybrid film "The Missing" (Iti Mapukpukaw) from the Philippines in this year's International Feature Film Race.

The film tells the story of a gay animator with no mouth. When he is asked to search for his missing uncle, he discovers that his uncle is already dead and meets an alien who helps him unravel his confused memories. The film was well received at local film festivals and was the first animated film to be entered in the main competition at the prestigious Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, where it won awards for best film and best actress.

The Missing is directed by Carl Joseph Papa, a full-time software engineer who spends his spare time making films. Produced by Project 8 Projects, Papa's previous films, "The Unforgetting" and "Paglisan," have screened at film festivals around the world and won numerous awards.

As seen in the trailer (above), "The Missing" is an animation that mixes rotoscoping and hand-drawn 2D techniques. In a recent interview with The Inquirer Super, the online edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer's pop culture section, Papa explained why he chose the film's mixed-technique style:

With rotoscope, it looks so real that you stop and 'Is this real? I want to complement the mental state of the characters. I want to follow his confusing journey to understand what happened to him. I also used traditional 2D hand-drawn animation for the flashbacks. I want to portray the silliness and euphoria of childhood, even if there is darkness underlying the story. It's a kind of dissociation, childish and kind of cute, hiding a deeper, darker story underneath.

On his passion for animation, Papa says: [I hope] [my work] will be a stepping stone for Filipino animators and original content creators to create animation that reflects Filipino culture, what it is to be Filipino, and what it looks like in the Philippines. I hope. That is my goal. I am not a trained animator. I have loved drawing since I was a child and have seen many animated films. In my previous works, I refused to consider animation as a genre. Animation is a means or tool to tell a story. I do not want animation to be just a fantasy or something for children. Animation is a drama or romance ...... It can also tell adult stories and homosexual stories. There are no limits to what animation can do.