Fine Filipina Femme Fatales

It takes women with rich imaginations to credibly portray fantastic characters, and every single one of the Filipinas featured in this exhibit has imagination in spades.

Having courageously brought cosplay geekery from the fringe to the spotlight over the last seven years, even against the conservative cultural norms of Philippine society, Filipina-Chinese model Alodia Gosiengfiao has risen to become one of the world’s greatest cosplayers. Because of Alodia, Philippine cosplay has been elevated to the point that it’s now featured in this prestigious exhibit. “Of course, working with the one who made a name with cosplay was nothing short of a pleasure,” Tablante tells Spot.ph in an interview. “She cosplayed several characters for the exhibit.” Alodia is joined in this exhibit by her sister and fellow cosplayer Ashley Gosiengfiao.

Filipina actress Rhian Ramos played the female lead in the Philippine version of Zorro. She also played a sorceress in a fantasy TV series. Having portrayed two different characters in two different versions of a classic Philippine superhero tale, Rhian lends herself particularly well to the role of a high-flying superheroine in Tablante’s exhibit. “She has been my ‘muse’ for the past few years,” shares Tablante. “It was with the shoots we do for fun, that built that rapport. Having her cosplay as Rogue was just a natural for her.” Rhian is joined in this exhibit by her sister Nadine Howell.

Filipina-German actress Bianca King is best known for her portrayal of a winged warrior-woman in one of the Philippines’ biggest movie-TV fantasy franchises. In fact, her acting career features a whole slew of fantasy series involving everything from superheroes to mermaids to hawkmen. She’s got a lot of experience with fantastic characters.

Filipina-French actress Solenn Heussaff is a make-up artist and fashion designer who’s one of the leading ladies in a superhero TV series. Alodia once told me that cosplayers have to do everything themselves when they’re starting out. Apparently, Solenn has some of that plucky self-reliance. “She was complete professional, and does her homework,” says Tablante. “The leather pants we got to use were hers, and she did her own prosthetic make-up, which was super cool. We chose X-23 for her because she’s your deadly combination of a sporty bod and killer looks.”

Hailed as one of the Philippines’ best new actresses, Barbie Forteza lends her promising thespic talents to the cosplay scene with her dynamic posing and projection.

Unleash Your Inner Geek

As one of the Philippines’ top photographers, Tablante has worked with some of the country’s most beautiful Filipinas over the last eight years. He’s also a self-confessed comic book geek. “I’m a frustrated illustrator,” says the popular photographer in an interview with Marvel.com. “Ever since I was a kid when I started my little collection, I’ve always wanted to draw like the artists in comic books.”

“I got into cosplay photography as a means to merge photography with my childhood love and geekiness for comics, anime, and video games,” Tablante tells Alexandre.ph. “Also to solve my frustration at drawing – if I can’t draw my favorite game babes, I can still shoot them!”

With this cosplay photo exhibit, Tablante achieves his comic-book dreams by drawing with light instead of ink. With a certified geek behind the lens and imaginative Filipinas in front of the lens, these meticulously composed cosplay images are guaranteed to take viewers on visual flights of pop culture fantasy. Le Femme Fatales opens at The Crucible Gallery at 6:30pm Manila time (UTC+8) on February 22, 2011.

Filipina cosplay queen Alodia Gosiengfiao visits Legendary Pictures to discuss the upcoming Warcraft movie.

A fine Filipina is bypassing the grind of Philippine showbiz and paving her own path to Hollywood — and it’s a uniquely geeky path. Filipina cosplay queen Alodia Gosiengfiao recently attended the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, one of the biggest pop culture festivals on the planet. She wore various costumes to the convention, one of which won the Hall Costume Award from the prestigious Costume Designers Guild.

Filipina cosplay queen Alodia Gosiengfiao wins the Hall Costume Award at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Alodia’s trip was documented by Oscar-nominated director Morgan Spurlock, famous for his groundbreaking documentary Super Size Me. Alodia is one of five Comic-Con attendees featured in Spurlock’s upcoming documentary Comic-Con Episode Four: A Fan’s Hope, in theaters 2011.

Apparently, Spurlock was so impressed with Alodia’s cosplay that he recommended her to his colleagues for a much, much larger project — one that also involves fantasy costumes.

Legendary Gamer

Legendary Pictures, the studio behind such box-office blockbusters as 300, The Dark Knight, and Inception, is currently developing a film based on the Warcraft video game franchise. The potential audience for a Warcraft movie is massive: 11.5 million people around the world play the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, the latest game in the franchise.

Alodia herself is an avid gamer, and her passion for video games shows in her cosplay. Her first breakthrough cosplay character came from the hit Japanese role-playing game Final Fantasy X-2, way back in 2003. She’s even cosplayed professionally for game publishers. This gamer girl has been immersed in video games since before she was born: Alodia’s mom was playing Super Mario Bros. when she went into labor.

Alodia also used to play World of Warcraft. You can see where this is going.

A Fan’s Hope

Legendary Pictures founder and CEO Thomas Tull is producing Spurlock’s Comic-Con documentary. That’s why Spurlock was able to recommend Alodia for a role in the upcoming Warcraft movie.

“We met with Legendary about that movie,” Alodia told gaming blog Kotaku after her meeting with Tull, “and they’re considering me for one of the characters.” Alodia used to play a blood elf in World of Warcraft, and she hopes to do the same in the Warcraft movie.

The Philippines has a longstanding performance arts culture and a rising geek culture, both of which contribute to a strong cosplay culture. How fitting, then, that a fine Filipina should be the first cosplayer in the world to star in a major motion picture.

Engagement Over Reach

Alodia’s also an anime fan who serves as a VJ for Southeast Asian anime cable network Animax. By casting Alodia in the Warcraft movie, Legendary Pictures would do what Animax did when they recruited Alodia: hire a fan to engage fans. That move worked quite well for Animax, and it should work just as well for Legendary Pictures.

Alodia’s path to Hollywood fame is quite nontraditional: her fanbase is mostly online, and she focuses on fan engagement over reach. Fortunately, the exact same things can be said about World of Warcraft. That’s why this fine Filipina gamer is perfect for the project.

As a writer for Fine Filipinas, I’m constantly reminded that there’s often far more to a fine Filipina than meets the eye. Behind Alodia Gosiengfiao’s giggly cosplay girl persona, for instance, is a strong-willed young woman determined to push the boundaries of an emerging artform. Behind Mia Marquez’s sophisticated prodigy model persona is a fun-loving, lighthearted, and vivacious teenage girl. Behind Giselle Sanchez’s crazy sexy comedienne persona is a fiercely intelligent and deeply spiritual woman of substance.

Most fans of Filipina actress Dianne Sison know her as the perky and sassy gamer girl from More on Gaming TV, a show about video games. She’s the girl who played the classic Legend of Zelda, the girl who reviews all the cool new games. She’s the girl who appeared in a calendar for a major Philippine game publisher. She’s the girl who’s smart enough to appreciate gamer passion. A method actress and a graduate of theater arts, she’s the girl who loves the strong immersive narratives of fantasy role-playing games. Behind Dianne’s gamer babe persona, however, is a complex balance of fiery ambition tempered by precocious wisdom.

Performance Prodigy

The daughter of a self-made man, Dianne grew up knowing the value of hard work, determination, and self-evolution. Those values made Dianne a prodigy. Having already skipped kindergarten as a child, Dianne started writing poetry by age eight, and began theater training at age ten. Having toured Europe by the time she was fourteen, Dianne had already developed an admiration for the European ability to balance human pursuits and passions — arts and sciences, work and play, intensity and relaxation. That admiration extends to European languages, of which she speaks Spanish and French.

Many children who develop their academic and vocational skills at an early age, do so at the cost of their social skills. Dianne is an exception to that rule. This is a girl who understood the key concepts of social dynamics far earlier than her classmates did. “I grasped the concept of dating by the time I was fourteen,” says Dianne of her early social development. Unfortunately, this presented problems for the young Dianne, whose conservative Catholic school classmates just couldn’t grasp her gregarious nature.

Though Dianne’s ultra-conservative high school did not allow students to render public performances, it soon became clear to school administrators that the young girl needed a social outlet. That’s why she was given special permission to work in media — a field in which Dianne flourished.

Soon Dianne was modelling for the famous international agency Cal-Carries. From then on, the breaks started coming one after another. Dianne was hosting TV shows, playing in a girl band, starring in soap operas. The talented young prodigy faced opportunity after opportunity, and she took them on like there was no tomorrow. Her childhood admiration for European balance gave way to the hustle and bustle of a performance artist’s life. Sleep deprivation became Dianne’s constant companion. That’s when disaster struck.

Tragedy and Recovery

While driving home on a long stretch of road from yet another hard day of taping, a sleep-deprived Dianne blacked out at the wheel. The next thing she knew, she was extracting her broken body from a total car wreck.

Dianne Sison, the prodigy, the go-getter, the exception to the rule, had suffered a spinal whiplash injury. She was bedridden for a year, and spent three more years recovering.

Even though she had to go to school on medication for her spinal injury, even though she had to fight through clinical depression, even though she had to “take exams on Valium”, Dianne didn’t give up on her passion for performance. Through running and swimming and healthy eating, Dianne managed to lose the thirty-five pounds she had gained during her four-year convalescence — sculpting herself into a shapely 32B-24-35 figure.

Not content with rebuilding just her body, Dianne rebuilt her mindset as well. Understanding that her self-destructive workaholic attitude almost got her killed, Dianne rediscovered her admiration for the European ethos of balance.

Balance of Forces

That sense of balance now pervades Dianne’s attitudes on life. Her geekier fans know that she prefers Star Wars over Star Trek. That’s because one of the major themes of Star Wars is the mystical balance between the Light and Dark sides of the Force. In fact, all six of the Star Wars movies tell the story of how Anakin Skywalker brought balance to the Force.

While Dianne enjoys electronic music from the nineties, she’s also a huge fan of mellow music from the sixties. She can articulately expound on the beauty of both electronic beats and acoustic lullabies. “There’s just so much good in sixties music,” says Dianne, “and you absorb what you hear.” While she’s an artist through and through, Dianne actually counts math as one of her favorite subjects. She appreciates how the mathematical properties of music form the basis for its beauty.

While Dianne appreciates that Macs give artists direct control over their content with as few technical hassles as possible, she doesn’t carry an iPhone. Instead, she carries a Nokia E71, the full-keyboard phone favored by legendary anti-Apple tech columnist John C. Dvorak.

Dianne took up quite a healthy lifestyle to rebuild her body, and she maintains that lifestyle to this day. As a member of Greenpeace, she helps keep the Earth healthy as well. Dianne’s belief in balance extends from her mind, to her body, to her planet.

Renaissance Woman

Lest anyone think that balance equals ambivalence, make no mistake: Dianne is a driven performer. Just a year out of convalescence, Dianne’s back with a TV show and an upcoming movie. She even plans on moving to Singapore, the central hub of Southeast Asian showbiz. Heck, her next stop could be Hollywood.

Even Dianne’s dream acting role is ambitious: a psychotic yet sympathetic character, with the insanity of Fatal Attraction Glenn Close and the vulnerability of Meryl Streep. If any scriptwriters out there are working on such a complex character, pitch it to Dianne.

Though passionately driven to succeed as an actress, Dianne makes her passion sustainable. Her zest for work is equaled by her zest for life. She drinks her wheatgrass, she counts her carbs, she banks her sleep, she smiles ear-to-ear like Jennifer Love Hewitt, she stops to smell the roses and sip the Italian coffee and taste the tiramisu. There are a few young workaholic Filipinas on this blog who could take a hint from Dianne.

Despite her global ambitions, Dianne is determined to stay down-to-earth and personable. “I don’t want to become too showbiz,” says Dianne earnestly. She answers all her own fanmail, and customizes all her communications with fans as deeply as time allows. Dianne’s remarkable mental balance gives her the ability to evaluate people and situations with astounding clarity. Have her sign an autograph, and she might surprise you with a written insight into your own character.

Dianne is an admirer of Leonardo da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance man who excelled in both the arts and the sciences. With her keen sense of balance, with her ability to observe and appreciate her environment without the perceptual blinders of mental preoccupation or emotional predisposition or physical exhaustion, this fine Filipina is well on her way to becoming a modern Renaissance woman.

Veteran Filipina comedienne Giselle Sanchez currently endorses Enduranz herbal food supplements for men. Enduranz claims to elevate testosterone levels — and as you can see in these beach photos, Giselle herself can elevate men’s testosterone levels too.

Note that Giselle is the proud mother of two kids. Like fellow Filipina celebrity moms Carlene Aguilar and Yda Manzano, Giselle proves that fine Filipinas can raise wonderful children and still look great in bikinis.

(Via Pinay Celebrity Online.)

(First photo by Maxi Adrian San Agustin. Second and third photos by Reuel Mark Delez. Fourth photo by Neil Vicencio.)

Five-foot-tall Filipina actress Aiza Marquez graces the cover of Playboy Philippines this May. Having starred in everything from commercials to TV shows to movies at twenty-five, her body of work over the last two decades stands far larger than her petite frame.

Aiza’s no stranger to magazine covers, either: she appeared on the cover of Uno Magazine in July 2007. Even with her considerable showbiz experience, she’s every bit as cute as she was in the Pop Cola commercial that made her a household name ten years ago.

(First photo via Aiza. Second photo via Boy.)

Filipina actress Gretchen Barretto has faced many controversies in both her personal and professional life throughout her storied twenty-year showbiz career. Now she’s Ready to Take a Chance Again.

Gretchen’s remake of the Barry Manilow classic comes from her appropriately-titled second album, Complicated.