Two prestige film projects have wrapped up principal photography and are starting on postproduction work immediately.
Lav Diaz’s new opus, Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis, traveled to far-away Sorsogon for its shoot before completing its scenes in Bataan. The amazing thing about this new black-and-white Diaz project is the casting.
Piolo Pascual and John Lloyd Cruz made sure that they set aside all other assignments to work on this film, which also includes Angel Aquino, Bernardo Bernardo, Cherie Gil, Hazel Orencio and Sid Lucero.
“I will never say no to a Lav Diaz project,” enthused Sid, who also worked with Diaz in the highly praised Norte: Hangganan ng Kasaysayan.
“Lav is a brilliant filmmaker and storyteller, and I’m just so privileged to be working with this great artist for the first time,” said John Lloyd, adding, “I look forward to working with him again in the near future. He is simply awesome.”
Meanwhile, Larawan, The Musical, considered as another prestige project, had its last shooting day on Sunday. Aside from the two female singer-actors, Joanna Ampil and Rachel Alejandro, the two male leads Paulo Avelino and Sandino Martin made sure that they always came to the set prepared.
Paulo is juggling between his remaining sequences for his TV soap opera Bridges of Love and his Larawan character Tony Javier. “Being part of a film-musical is tough but truly interesting. We had many, many rehearsals to achieve the vision of our director Loy Arcenas for the film.”
For his part, Sandino Martin is also working on two other projects aside from Larawan. Touted as one of the young best actors to emerge from independent cinema in recent years, Sandino is part of the new ABS-CBN drama series Ang Probinsyano, headlined by Coco Martin. He has also started work on another independent film, The Dog Shooter, where he plays the lead role.
“It’s all a matter of time management and proper scheduling,” Sandino said of having several balls in the air. “I have always dreamt of being in a teleserye and also to be part of a rare local musical film, and it’s just interesting that these two dreams came at the same time. I can only be thankful.”
REUNITED
Many are looking forward to the latest team-up of established actors Richard Gomez and Dawn Zulueta. Together with Bea Alonzo, Richard and Dawn are starring in the Star Cinema movie The Love Affair.
Richard and Dawn fist made a splash when they worked on Carlitos Siguion-Reyna’s Hihintayin Kita sa Langit in 1991, and since then cinema aficionados eagerly wait for projects that will bring these two actors together.
In this latest movie for Star Cinema, filmmaker Nuel Naval explained that three’s definitely a crowd. “When relationships get entangled by complicated webs of passion, betrayal and desire, hell will surely break loose. We tried to come up with revealing twists and we tapped untried territories so that we can veer away from the usual tried-and-tested love triangle-themed movies.”
The director added that he was overwhelmed by the cooperation showed by his three main actors. “I knew it was not going to be an easy task, but after almost 60 shoot days, we were able to wrap up the project because of the competence and professionalism of my actors.”
Dawn and Richard have also started their new daily drama for television, but that had to give away for a spell to allow Star Cinema to finish the movie that will be screened in more than a hundred cinemas nationwide starting August 12.
NOT ONE, BUT TWO
Philippine cinema’s erstwhile bad boy Robin Padilla will become the proud daddy of twins by next year. Robin gladly announced on his social-media account that his wife Mariel is carrying twins based on her latest ultrasound.
There are talks that the couple underwent an in vitro fertilization procedure while they were vacationing in Europe recently, but neither Robin nor Mariel has confirmed or denied the IVF talks, especially since the news broke only over the weekend.
Mariel suffered a miscarriage about four months ago and, like many first time mothers-to-be, she was devastated. The European vacation obviously resulted to more than just a recharging for the couple, and almost everyone shares the joy of Robin and Mariel are experiencing right now.
We hope that Mariel will have a smooth pregnancy. Given that she miscarried not too long ago, she should be extremely careful this time.
Meanwhile, Robin will start work very soon for his Metro Manila Film Festival entry, Nilalang, where he co-stars with former Japanese porn star Maria Ozawa.
What is this we hear that the production is scrimping on the talent fees of its preferred support actors. We learned from reliable sources that they are offering premium and veteran actors rates lower than the indie cinema circuit, and that the actors are flabbergasted to be treated so lowly.
We doubt that Robin is aware of this, because he would be the first one to react and talk to his producers to treat and compensate these veteran actors fairly. This is the same production outfit that produced the forgettable indie flick Binhi, where lead actor Joem Bascon was a no-show during the movie’s gala night in May.