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Embarking on a remarkable journey, Otep, a 16-year-old high school boy, faces a challenging narrative of education. It is where resources are as scarce as they are essential: as simple as a paper to write on and a pento write with. Realizing that his brother’s efforts in yielding meager wages will not make the cut in reaching for his dreams, Otep makes it his compass, resolving to carve his own destiny.
A tribute to the real potential of digital cinema, Slingshot is a slum epic on steroids. It weaves stories left and right into a shocking tableau about life for the lowest of the low in the Philippines poorest and most crime-ridden districts. National elections are coming up so in the usual attempt to appear “tough-on-crime”, The Big Boys have been sent into crack down on the the local squatters, thieves and miscreants who litter the film like broken bottle. And since no sweep is ever a clean sweep, the cops brutal shock-force tactics quickly ripple outwards with jagged repurcussions.
The film follows two competing television news teams as they chase a variety of leads, gradually zeroing in on an impending and possibly apocalyptic storm, and a middle-aged teacher who may or may not be possessed by a demon. Writer and actress Raquel Villavicencio plays the ruthless head of the top-rated network, coming off as a Tagalog variation on Faye Dunaway's fabled character in Network. Her team has eschewed covering politics in favour of triedand- true tabloid fodder: demonic possession.
In a military-ruled Philippines, the line between justice and revenge blurs as a driven officer hunts down his sister’s killers, convinced the rebels are hiding the truth.
