BACOLOD CITY??It?s the most Negrense film I have ever known.?

This is how Negrense director Jay Abello describes the independently produced digital movie, ?Namets!,? which he is currently shooting in Negros Occidental.

This is a movie in which the main character is the food of the Visayan province?and the dialog is in Ilonggo, notes Abello.

He filmed entirely in Negros Occidental, with Negrenses comprising more than 70 percent of the cast and crew.

Delicious!

??Namets!? is a colorful celebration of love as well as food ... and the love of food above all, which is central to being Negrosanon and being Filipino,? says Palanca Award winner Vicente Groyon, who wrote the script.

Abello is from Silay City, known for its various mouth-watering delicacies. He points out that the film works at capturing how life revolves around food in Negros and this, he says, necessarily affects people?s lives.

?Namets!? (Ilonggo term for delicious) tells the story of Jacko (Christian Vasquez) and Cassie (Angel Jacob), two chefs who grew up in Bacolod.

Trouble starts when Jacko loses his Italian restaurant, Puccini?s, to pay off a huge cockfighting debt. The moneylender Dolpo (played by renowned Negrense filmmaker Peque Gallaga) takes control of Puccini?s and hires Cassie as consultant for a total restaurant makeover.

?Namets!? premieres at the 2008 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, which will be held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from July 11 to 20. A week-long screening at the University of the Philippines Diliman Film Center follows, and then a regular run in Metro Manila cinemas.

The film will have its Visayan premiere at the SM Cinema in Bacolod City in mid-August, before going on a nationwide campus tour, Abello said.

The cast includes actors with Bacolod roots, such as Vasquez, Gallaga, Monsour del Rosario, Ronnie Lazaro and Dwight Gaston. Local theater talents round up the list.