"Jay": A Significant Filipino Gay Film

Baron Geisler is Jay

One of this year's Cinemalaya's gems is a gay interest film called "Jay" directed by Francis Pasion. "Jay" is a well-crafted and well-scripted film on how to make a bad TV documentary about a gay man stabbed to death by his masseur.

Despite its serious topic, the film is a funny yet biting commentary on the excessive intrusion of TV journalism.



The film's first fifteen minutes starts with a cheesy and very bad documentary on the murder of Jay. This segment made me feel quite bored until we were drawn to how the bad documentary was actually made. And the velocity of the film started to speed off.



The film made is a modern day version of "Tuhog", a well crafted pito-pito film from Jeffrey Jeturian in the late 90's. "Tuhog" was written by today's most brilliant Filipino screenwriter Armando Lao. And the script of "Jay" also went through the critical examination of Mr. Lao.


Catch it at CCP. Or make sure to watch it in its regular run. It's a must see.