Twelve-year-old Maxi (Lopez), unabashedly gay in both senses of the word, keeps a tidy, cheery household for his loving family of petty crooks in the squalid slums of Manila, but "the film's enticing mood of carefree joy swiftly darkens" when Maxi falls head-over-heels for the neighborhood's handsome new cop. The Philippines' official submission for the 2006 foreign-language Oscar is "shimmering with folkloric charm without softening its view of the harshness and injustice of a life of poverty...Solito's ability to inspire such a daring, unself-conscious portrayal from Lopez is no less than astonishing." (LA Times) In English, Filipino and Tagalog with English subtitles. Cosponsored with the Cornell Filipino Association. More at blossomingofmaximooliveros.com.
2006, color, 1 hour 40 minutes, Philippines