GAYUMA (PILGRIM LOVERS)

Country: Philippines
Production year: 2011
Director: Alvin B. Yapan
Producer: Alemberg Ang
Cast: Mercedes Cabral, Kalil Almonte, Robyn John Reyes, Frank Penones
Duration: 86 min

Gayuma is a magical tale of love going beyond the boundaries of social class, religious and superstitious beliefs, and urban-rural prejudices. A failed exorcism of a talking and dancing statue of a Child Jesus leads a poor sacristan, Delfin, to concoct a love potion to make Carla, a rich girl, fall for him. After Carla drinks the potion and assents to all his advances, Delfin cannot believe his luck until he is no longer certain whether Carla really loves him. He descends into a deep sleep of paranoia, from which no medical science can wake him. Carla goes on a pilgrimage to overturn the enchantment of the love potion. A possessed statue of a Child Jesus stands between the two lovers. Probably the only Bikol-language film screened in Poland.