In between staging comedy shows in New York a few days ago, I was invited to the opening night of the prestigious Soho International Film Festival (SIFF) at Village East Cinemas. The opening film was “Coach Of The Year” by David Stott. The film’s stars including Harris Doran, Melissa Archer, Hunter Gomez, James McCaffrey and Kevin Brown were all present at the event but I wasn’t paying much attention to them. Rather, I was awed by the presence of film director Elwood Perez who was there for the international premiere of “Esoterika: Maynila.” During our short talk, I asked him why he made himself scarce for some 20 years. He said, “I thought I just keep on repeating myself. My interest in doing films was revived with ‘Otso.’ I couldn’t say no to the Film Development Council of the Philippines.” We also talked a bit about “Esoterika: Maynila, He shared, “The film stars Ronnie Liang. I took the title of the film from the English word ‘esoteric,’ which means complex, mysterious, impenetrable, and rare, qualities I believe present in our film.”