LOS ANGELES, California—Alan del Rosario, a civil engineer-turned-designer from Cebu, is one of seven fashion talents selected to create a gown to be worn by one of the trophy presenters at the Academy Awards on Feb. 22.

Alan, an LA-based couturier whose prestigious awards include California’s “Designer of the Year” and GenArt LA’s “Fresh Face,” was picked by Oscar fashion coordinator Patty Fox as among the designers who will come up with specially commissioned gowns to be on the spotlight on Oscar night. The others are Maria Pinto (US First Lady Michelle Obama’s favorite designer), Robert Rodriguez, Nicolas Putvinski, Sam Kori George, Moire Conroy and Marianne Kooimans.

We met Alan in an event presided by Patty, author of the book “Star Style at the Academy Awards,” last Tuesday at the Academy’s headquarters in Beverly Hills. We’ll write more about him in our column Saturday.

The winner in the Oscars Designer Challenge will be determined by the public through online voting—a first in the history of the Academy. To view more pictures and video footage of Alan’s gown entry and to vote for him, log on to www.oscar.com. Anyone over 18 can register and vote once on Feb. 17 until 5 p.m., Pacific Time. The winner will be announced on the Oscar night red carpet on Feb. 22. Good luck, Alan!

‘Mammoth’ gala screening

“Nakakaiyak — grabe!” gushed Maris Delos Santos after witnessing her son Martin Delos Santos, along with Marife Necesito and Jan David “Aja” Nicdao, walk on the red carpet at the official gala screening of their competition entry “Mammoth” last Sunday evening at the Berlin Film Festival. With them were co-stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Sophie Nyweide and director Lukas Moodysson.

Maris added: “Ang daming photographer saying, ‘To your right please, smile!’ Now, to your left, pose!’ ‘Right here, please!’ Grabe talaga. Naiiyak ako for Marife, Martin at Jan David!” Martin braved Berlin’s winter chill in a Barong Tagalog designed by Maris and her friend and executed by Barong Filipino.

In the Philippines, Dennis Nicdao, the father of Jan David (nicknamed Aja), watched the live video streaming of “Mammoth’s” official photo call, press conference and red carpet event on the Internet.

Dennis shared with us via e-mail his impressions of the events that his son (chaperoned by mom Susan) and fellow Pinoy actors attended: “The photo call was great! Lukas, Gael, Marife, Sophie, Martin and Aja wore casual clothes. Afterward, they all proceeded to the dais for the press conference. Most of the questions were directed at Gael and Lukas. Lars Jonsson (producer), Marife and the three kids were also interviewed.

Shooting frenzy

“Several hours later, the red carpet event and the official gala screening took place. Martin was in a barong; Gael, Lukas and Aja were in coat and tie. Marife wore an off-shoulder gown (designed by Dennis Cabalinan). The photographers went into a shooting frenzy. Gael was like a very gracious father to the three kids and gallantly escorted Marife during the walk. According to my wife Susan, it was really a high octane event— ibang level! It was a once in a lifetime event for them.”

Early reviews of “Mammoth” are mixed but some critics commented more favorably on the Filipino and Thai supporting cast. Variety’s Alissa Simon wrote, “Top-billed stars Garcia Bernal and Williams look great, but can’t overcome their superficial, unlikable characterizations and bland lines. The foreign supporting cast (whose scenes are mostly shot in Tagalog and Thai) also look good and rate higher on the likability and credibility scales.

“Comparable in many ways to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s ‘Babel,’ the pic intercuts three stories, set variously in the US, the Philippines and Thailand, each involving working parents who regret they can’t spend more time with their offspring. However, the shallow, mega-wealthy, entitled American characters can afford top-of-the-line replacement childcare in their deluxe Soho loft in contrast to single-mother protagonists such as the Filipino nanny and the Thai sex worker, who struggle far from home in order to build a better life for their loved ones.”

Screen Daily’s Jonathan Romney wrote: “The adult cast copes adequately with paper-thin roles, while the children bring enthusiastic candor to what are at best ‘universal innocent’ parts.”

Upon reading Stephanie Bunbury’s review in Australia’s The Age, we sensed that her analysis seemed the calm, rationale one.

Stephanie wrote, “Hearing an audience divide as a film’s credits roll can be bracing, especially if that film has left you divided within yourself. As the boos and whistles of defiance erupted at the end of Sunday’s Berlin Film Festival screening of Swedish troublemaker Lukas Moodysson’s ‘Mammoth,’ there was a sense the battle was just beginning.

“Was this brilliantly rendered film about parents separated from their children—whether they be the New York surgeon who arrives home from an exhausting night shift to see her daughter bonding with her Filipino nanny, or the nanny herself who has left her small sons on the other side of the world to make enough money to buy them a decent house, or the Thai prostitute who provides company for the traveling businessman, then calls home to sing to her baby—the most retrograde slash at working mothers yet committed to film? Or did it illuminate a particular kind of modern alienation in a way that was poetic and true, however unpalatable?

“This film is made in English with stars—Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams — so it will not slip into obscurity. If anything, it’s the cinema equivalent of the stab wounds in the stomach of a little boy who arrives in Williams’ emergency ward: Moodysson goes for our guts.”

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, “The Nepales Report,” on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.