FINALLY, a full-length movie in the Pangasinan language has been produced, thanks to the pioneering work of Christopher Gozum, a multiawarded independent filmmaker, who is the movie?s director, producer, scriptwriter, sound and video editor, and colorist.

Shot entirely in Pangasinan, ?Anacbanua (The Child of the Sun),? will have its premier at the 11th Cinemanila International Film Festival on October 15-25.

The one-hour, 44-minute film is among the finalists in the Digital Lokal Section (Philippine digital films) of the competition.

Gozum, who was born and raised in Bayambang town, said he used the Pangasinan language in the film because it is the breadth and soul of every Pangasinense.

?If a [Pangasinense] stops speaking his native tongue right at the very heart of his homeland or even away from home, he will start to smell like a rotten fish. He is also as good as dead because he had lost his soul,? Gozum said in an e-mail interview.

Gozum has been based in Saudi Arabia since 2007 where he works as videographer and editor.

?I believe this type of filmmaking [that] I do ? low-budget digital films that speak and assert a distinct ethnolinguistic identity communicated in my native tongue Pangasinan ?is my way of reclaiming what had been lost in my consciousness and identity as a [Pangasinense] because of the politics of a so-called ?Filipino national language? and a ?Filipino national culture,?? he said.

Anacbanua, which is about returning to one?s roots and the current condition of language and culture in Pangasinan, is Gozum?s second Pangasinan film.

Last year, he produced ?Surreal Random MMS Texts para ed Ina, Agui, tan Kaamong ya Makakailiw ed Sika: Gurgurlis ed Banua (Surreal Random MMS Texts for a mother, a sister and a wife who longs for you: Landscape with figures),? a 15-minute experimental film based on a Pangasinan translation of Carlos Bulosan?s 1942 poem, ?Landscape with Figures.?

The short film won Gozum the Ishmael Bernal Award for Most Outstanding Young Filipino Filmmaker during the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival.