MANILA, Philippines – The work-in-progress movie is still untitled but fans all over the world are eagerly awaiting the international theatrical release of WBO welterweight champion Rep. Manny Pacquiao?s feature film documentary next year.
According to head producer Ryan Moore, over 500 hours of footage have been shot in Manila, General Santos City, Sarangani, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D. C., Las Vegas and Dallas to be later sorted out in deciding the final cut for the movie being produced through Revelin Studios of Los Angeles.
?I?ve been attached to the hip with Manny for almost a year now,? said Moore. ?It?s a feature film documentary which will be released theatrically worldwide in 2012. It will give audiences an intimate look at Manny?s life and it?s Manny?s first international movie.?
Pacquiao announced the production of the film during the press conference in New York City last Feb. 14 for his fight against Sugar Shane Mosley. Actual lensing started last October.
The film crew was in General Santos City to document Pacquiao?s 32nd birthday celebration last December and has lately been holed up in a suite in a Fort condominium shooting interviews. The other day, the crew was at the PICC to shoot the turnover of seven ambulances by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office to Pacquiao for Sarangani.
With Pacquiao?s active participation, the film promises to reveal the inside story of the Filipino ring icon?s rise to success. Writer Dave McNary said the movie will focus ?on his emergence from poverty, his election in May to the Congress of the Philippines and his plans to introduce legislation aimed at slowing the tide of human trafficking in the Philippines and other developing nations.?
Directing the film is Leon Gast, a New Jersey native with seven credits as a producer, four as an editor and 12 as a director. Gast has been in and out of the country to track down Pacquiao?s footsteps and interview people exposed to his life as a fighter, family man, private citizen and politician. Last Monday, Gast and the movie crew were at the late Polding Correa?s gym in Malabon to interview Rustico Torrecampo, the first fighter and the only Filipino to beat Pacquiao.
Torrecampo, 38, was involved in a murder in 2007 and is now on the comeback trail after a 13-year layoff as a prizefighter. He knocked out Pacquiao in the third round in Mandaluyong in 1996. Correa was responsible for bringing Pacquiao to Manila on a boat from General Santos City in 1995 and became his first manager.
Gast won the Oscar for best documentary feature in 1996 with ?When We Were Kings,? a film that told the inside story of the ?Rumble in the Jungle? between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshaha, Congo, in 1974. Gast was then quoted as saying, ?I believe in the truest sense of the word that Muhammad Ali is a hero ? his presence explodes off the screen, he is a hero in comparison with the so-called icons of today, all athletes today are looking for is a good endorsement deal ? there are few real heroes ? is there anyone that you can really look up to??
Gast has been mesmerized by the emergence of Pacquiao as the world?s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter capturing in the process eight world titles in eight divisions, an unprecedented feat, and his bold foray into politics.
While the Pacquiao film is being produced, Gast is also involved in an untitled Billy Graham/Fillmore East documentary to be shown in 2012. The Graham movie is in the pre-production stage.
Gast studied dramatic arts at Columbia University. Not only is he a film director, producer, cinematographer and editor but Gast is also a renowned photographer whose work has graced the pages of such magazines as Vogue, Esquire and Harper?s Bazaar.
Last year, Gast won the Best Director award for ?Smash Hits Camera,? a documentary on paparazzi photographer Ron Galella, at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
?Our goal is to craft an intimate character study of a man who came from nothing, achieved great things and selflessly leveraged his success for the benefit of his fellow countrymen,? said Gast explaining the Pacquiao movie.
The film?s producers are Moore, Ken Mayer and executive producer Christine Peters.
