The Filipino genre specialist discusses why the real-life corruption that inspired his Venice competition entry might make it the 'angriest' film he’s ever made.
But it’s his gritty, street-smart crime movies that have won him the most consistent admiration overseas. Following, a caustic drama about a Manila family entangled in a Ponzi scheme and the venality of the Filipino upper crust, which screened in Toronto and was summed up by, a relentless, propulsive action film following a drug bust carried out in by the Philippine DEA in a desperately poor Manila slum.
And it’s acidic because I was making the film at a time when fake news stories are just all over the place here in the Philippines. Trolling too. We have to live with it. I’ve been a victim of trolling as well. I posted some criticism of the government and my social media accounts were totally trolled. But that just fuels you to tell the story even better, even clearer.
So, to answer your question, we’re always intermingling with all of these different parts of society and their stories, and then you can’t help but have socio-political ideas to put on film. I posted something two months ago about really wanting to dissect and criticize the whole socio-political system that we have, but how there’s also a strange admiration from a filmmaker’s standpoint at how how interesting and complex these players actually are — as they work around the system.
Just last night, for example, we invited a group of people from all different sectors of society to have an early dinner and a gathering. It was also the last day of lockdown. So we had some top people from the sports arena, from showbiz and from the politics side; and we just started talking about what’s going on in the country — and it’s just fun to listen in. We do this kind of thing every other week or so — we get people together.
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