A Pilgrimage to Cinema

It is interesting to note that 2 of the 10 Filipino films in competition in this year's Cinemalaya (though I was only able to see 8) featured boys in their early teens who are about to come of age for very different reasons and under very different circumstances. I am referring to Thop Nazareno's " Edward " and Arden Rod Condez' " John Denver Trending ", both of which eventually won the festival's top two prizes: Special Jury Prize and Best Film, respectively. "Edward" is most of the time set in a government-run hospital, as the title-character (who's around 13 or 14) looks after his ailing father who's been confined there for weeks already while waiting for the laboratory test result to determine his actual sickness. Well, it's not even fair to say that Edward is "looking after" his father, because the boy prefers to horse around the hospital with his best buddy (who also has a family member confined there), whethe...