JUST DAYS before newspaper columnist Chip Tsao incurred the nation?s ire for his disparaging remark about Overseas Filipino Workers, a short film about a Pinay domestic helper (DH) won at the 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival.

Apart from Gina Pareño?s Best Supporting Actress win at the Asian Film Awards, ?Dry Rain,? which features Filipino actress Ana Abad Santos, won Best Short Film in the festival?s 4th Fresh Wave competition.

Cannes-bound

Santos told Inquirer that director Flora Lau may send the movie to the Cannes film fest this May.

A 15-year theater veteran and acting teacher with Repertory Philippines, Santos still felt daunted portraying a Pinay DH.

?The script hardly had any dialogue,? she recalled. It required a different technique. ?I had to be as real as possible. It was draining but refreshing at the same time. I reveled in it.?

She spent a week with the OFWs. ?I talked with them, ate with them. I got to visit some of them at their employers? homes and watch them work.?

In the helpers? tiny bedrooms, they shared their stories with her.

?They feel their lives are passing them by. They miss their kids? birthdays, graduations... even deaths in the family. They?re afraid that they no longer know who their children are.?

A single mom, Santos said that Lau encouraged her to use her son?s photo and name in the movie, to make her scenes more authentic. ?It was really painful.?

Loving tribute

The actress believes the short film is the director?s loving tribute to her own Filipino nanny. ?Flora adored her nanny,? Santos noted.

When ?Dry Rain? won at the Hong Kong film fest, Santos was ecstatic. ?I feel honored that I was given an opportunity to portray the integrity and intelligence of a Filipino domestic helper.?

That?s why the Chip Tsao controversy is all the more pointed, Santos said. ?It seems absurd. I?m being led to believe that it was satirical, but unfortunately, he just can?t write that well.?

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