Fil-Am’s short film picked up by several film festivals

NEW YORK — Filipino American filmmaker Michael Manese’s short film “The Pleasure of Being Served” is on a roll having been selected by 12 film festivals so far, with the last three just within the last week.

• Pelikultura – University of the Philippines – February 2018
• Albany Film Festival, Albany, CA – March 2018
• Brightside Film Festival, Jersey City, NJ – March 2018

Other notable selections include:

• 40th Asian American International Film Festival, NYC – July 2017
• Golden Door International Film Festival, Jersey City, NJ – September 2017
• New York City International Film Festival, NYC – March 2018

Manese’s short film introduces the character of Rosa, an undocumented immigrant who works for Hudson, a young American guy who is having a relationship with two women- a Filipina and an American woman.

In the process of getting to know these two women, Rosa gets caught between moral integrity and fulfilling her dream of giving her son a much better life. It’s an American movie about Filipinos.

MM plans to continue writing “Pleasure” as a feature length film with plans of raising funds and producing it. In the meantime, he continues to write ideas for shorts that would also have strong Filipino characters set in familiar American settings.

Born in the Philippines and raised in Passaic, New Jersey, Manese studied filmmaking at Rutgers University. He is a Web Project Manager by trade.