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Devils in Paradise (Mga Yawa sa Paraiso)
Production Country (s) PHILIPPINES Production Company (s) BLEUCALOGUE PICTURES
Genre DRAMA, SUPERNATURAL Production Spec 4K / 100 min
Production Stage
(or Project Status)		 Script Development Expected Date of Completion December 2020.
Production from Jan 2021 to May 2021.
Post up to Dec 2021
Total Budget
(Negative Cost)		 400,039.16 USD Confirmed Financing 40,000.00 USD
Director Joe BACUS Email of Director imoortalsproduction@gmail.com
Profile of the Director Joe Bacus is a filmmaker based in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines. His debut full-length feature film "Markado" premiered at QCinema International Film Festival (2018) and will have its Asian premiere at Fukuoka International Film Festival アジアフォーカス・福岡国際映画 (2019). Joe’s short film, ”Happy Fiesta,” had its premiere at the 28th ExGround Film Festival in Wiesbaden, Germany in 2015. His films have been screened and won in film festivals including Landshuter Kurzfilm festival (Deadline Award 2016) in Munich, Cellulart Film Festival in Jena, Germany, FACINE 2015 in San Francisco, among others.
Producer (s) Benjamin PADERO Email of Producer (s) ben.padero@gmail.com
Profile of the Producer (s) Benjamin Padero was associate producer for Bradley Liew’s “Singing in Graveyard (Venice IFF Critics Week 2016). ” Joe Bacus’s “Mga Yawa sa Paraiso” would be Ben’s first foray into full-length producing. He was also producer for NYU-TISCH alumna Mary Evangelista’s thesis short film, “Ina Nyo.” Ben is a production designer for film, including Brillante Mendoza’s “Masahista” (2005 Locarno IFF), “Serbis” (Cannes 2008), and “Captive” (Berlin 2012). He has also worked with Pepe Diokno for Above The Clouds, (Tokyo IFF 2014) and Bradley Liew’s “Motel Acacia.” Ben was nominated at the Asian Film Awards 2016 for Best Production Design.
Logline A shaman’s neglect causes the death of his daughter at the hands of his demonic familiar. Hounded by his plague-stricken town and his guilt, he is torn between his duties as healer and honouring his daughter’s dying wish of bringing her to her estranged mother.
Synopsis In 1770s Philippines, a shaman lives in the woods with his daughter who is anxious about becoming the next shaman. She apprentices for him because she knows the only way for her to be with her estranged aswang (mystical vampire-like creatures) mother is to control and ride the shaman’s sigbin (a dog-goat beast used for transportation between realms).
Strange events in the town stir up the shaman’s suspicions of an ongoing Spanish Church conspiracy and he rendezvous with a small band of allies. Meanwhile, his daughter is attacked at school for being a half-aswang and in her frustration, she summons and mishandle’s a hostile sigbin which kills her. Crippled by his guilt, the shaman tries to bring her daughter’s body to the forest to honour her dying wish of bringing her to her mother. Smallpox, however, has already plagued the town and he is torn between redeeming himself as a father and fulfilling his duties as a healer. Meeting his former lover (the aswang mother), he accepts his daughter’s death, and decides to focus on his dying town. The shaman returns to the town and, in exchange of his life force, cures the sick from the dreaded disease, also slowly degenerating in the process. Despite the shaman being near death, the Spanish Church leader still executes him for practicing dark magic—the alleged cause of his daughter’s death. The shaman’s death inspires his people to incite a stronger revolution against a centuries-old tyrannical empire.