Hollywood continues to dominate eyeballs worldwide, as Hallyu (the Korean Wave) keeps rising to stratospheric heights, poised to take over ticket sales and streaming shares. In the Philippines, local film and series titles remain struggling to attract local audiences; getting international mainstream attention seems far-fetched.
However, over the last 10 years, Philippine films have consistently made it into international film festival circuits and won recognition. Even those that don’t have been gaining national attention and have brought Filipinos back into cinemas and got streaming giants Netflix and Amazon Prime to buy into both local film and series titles.
This turnaround is a result of more than improving the stories we choose to tell. Like Hollywood, the local industry remains male-dominated, but Filipinas—especially those who could have chosen to build their careers abroad—have now come to lead local productions, furthering the achievements of Marilou Diaz-Abaya, Olivia Lamasan, and Laurice Guillen.
As KUBO’s special story for International Women’s Day (today, March 8) and Women’s Month (March), we’re highlighting Filipinas behind the scenes in the film industry, who are not only paving the way for more females to make it in the PH film industry, but are also inspiring Filipinas pursuing film careers abroad to come back home and tell stories for Filipinos here.
Samantha Lee still thinks she hasn’t reached mainstream status just yet, even with the success of Rookie (19th Cinemalaya Winner for Best Actress, Best Editing, and Audience Choice; currently streaming on Prime Video), but she’s definitely one film closer to achieving her dream of having proper and nuanced queer representation to be part of mainstream Philippine cinema.
Samantha lived in Melbourne, Australia for almost two years while taking up Masters in Communication. While Melbourne allowed her an ideal life in terms of career opportunities and supportive queer community, she still decided to return to the Philippines to tell stories that her younger self needed to see and hear—her favorite being Sleep With Me (starring Lovi Poe and Janine Gutierrez), currently available on Netflix.
While Samantha agrees that the local production industry continues to face a lot of creative, censorship, and worker welfare challenges, the biggest magnet for her is the ability to work with people she’s grown up with, who give a lot of shared insights, comfort, and play whenever they work on-set together.
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No relation to Samantha, but they worked on Sleep With Me together, along with an almost all-female cast and crew! This remains to be one of Cesca’s favorite works, along with Senior High (available on IWantTFC)—a series that boasts a talented cast of local veterans and Gen Z’s best, including Andrea Brillantes and Xyriel Manabat. Fun fact: She’ll never admit it, but she still keeps a shirt from the time she worked on the Donny Pangilinan and Belle Mariano AKA DonBelle hit, Love Is Color Blind (still on Netflix!)—guess whose shirt.
Interestingly, one film class while taking up Mass Communications in college made Cesca decide to devote her life to filmmaking. Without the benefit of film school, Cesca sought scholarships abroad to further her technical and artistic skills. In the span of two years, the Asian Film Academy (through the Busan International Film Festival) had invited her as a Cinematography Fellow, immediately followed by the Kyoto Filmmakers Lab (through the Tokyo International Film Festival). Apart from these learning experiences abroad, Cesca had also been tapped to work on a film and a commercial in Taiwan—even getting offered to become an in-house cinematographer for a production company in Taipei.
Despite the strong Asian network Cesca has at her fingertips, she shares, “My obsession to continue telling Filipino stories to both local and international audiences and to improve working conditions for the local film and TV industry remain my anchors, making it easy for me to continue calling the Philippines my home.” Even if Cesca needs to operate cameras with her mentor, cinematographer Niel Daza, she would gladly do so for the right stories, like she did for Rewind—the 2023 Metro Manila Film Festival blockbuster starring Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera, which is coming to Netflix on March 25.
Cesca is currently the Finance Director of LPS (Lupon ng Pilipinong Sinematograpo), the Cinematographers Guild of the Philippines. She is the first female to hold this position.
3. Anne Monzon, Cinematographer
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With the Vice Ganda top-billed Fantastica under her belt, cinematographer Anne Monzon claims a spot on the top five highest-grossing Filipino films of all time. She easily followed that up with Miracle in Cell No. 7—the highest-grossing MMFF film of 2019, starring Aga Muhlach.
Anne’s foray into film was a road paved by many women, including her mentor, Shayne Sarte, who encouraged Anne to invest in herself and take on a masterclass program with the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). It didn’t take a lot to convince Anne, as she had shipped herself off to Budapest at the ripe old age of 19(!), making her the youngest in her cohort of 40, the FIRST Southeast Asian participant, and one of only seven female participants.
Between being the first female Director of Photography for Cambodian and Vietnamese production teams to have worked with, and having the experience of being a one-woman shooting team for an airline ad in New York, Anne finds that the local production industry isn’t alone in its imperfection. She shares, “Whenever I experience something in another country, it’s with the idea of bringing it back home: how to make things better HERE.”
True to her mission, Anne currently sits as the first female president of LPS while continuing to be choiceful in the stories she tells.
4. XY Pintoy, Assistant Director
For XY, studying under Marilou Diaz-Abaya was all she needed to commit her life to production and to believe that the industry has space for women. Early in her career, XY had the opportunity to shoot in South Korea as a script supervisor with Star Cinema. Despite being a local production for a local film, XY and the Star Cinema team had to work with South Korean counterparts, allowing XY to compare similarities and differences between production teams.
Now an Assistant Director, XY integrates as much of the best practices as she could into running her teams, resulting in box-office hits like Just The 3 of Us (starring John Lloyd Cruz and Jennylyn Mercado) and the KathNiel starrer Can’t Help Falling in Love, both available on Netflix.
XY chooses to build and further her career in the Philippines, observing that “Here, you are welcome to and are allowed to begin a career in production, even if you’ve never gone to a day of film school.” She sees to it that she pays the learning forward, especially to women trying to make it in the industry.
5. Geneive Mercado, International Casting Director
For 25 years and counting, Geneive has made it a personal mission to fill screens with talents that represent her audience’s reality—the Filipino reality. A long-time casting partner for a brand that promotes real beauty, Geneive had taken this a step further and made perfect-imperfections her unique brand of casting. This gamble in niche paid off, making Geneive the Philippine casting arm for Real People Casting—a UK-based agency.
Geneive’s best works don’t stray from her life’s mission. Operation Smile, a challenging casting brief, won recognition in New York festivals—even more rewarding, the kids casted were given free surgeries.
While the production industries found pandemic lockdowns restrictive, Geneive found a way to allow talents to shoot themselves via their phones and make advertising materials put the spotlight on real Filipinos—here and abroad—slugging it through just like the rest of us. With every project Geneive takes on, “I make it a point to represent Filipinos properly, especially women. There is a balance to fulfilling production aesthetics and at the same time, fulfilling an audience’s right to be seen, recognized, and represented well. And maybe this is why I’m still here!”
6. Ramona S. Diaz, Director/Documentarian
While Filipina-American Ramona Diaz has made the United States her home, she makes a consistent choice to tell not just Asian stories, but clearly Filipino stories.
With Imelda in 2003 (watch this eye-opening documentary about Imelda Marcos here), Ramona introduced Sundance to her “character-driven” documentary style—and subsequently won an award for Excellence in Cinematography – Documentary. Her work returned to Sundance Film Festival two more times, with Motherland (2017), set in one of the busiest, least supported maternity wards in the Philippines (watch it on Prime Video); and A Thousand Cuts (2020), which follows the story of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa, in the midst of former Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs—and the press. A Thousand Cuts currently holds a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating and has been picked up for distribution by PBS (watch it below).
Ramona’s career in the United States grows audiences for what could be very insular Filipino stories, allowing the world a glimpse into Filipino life beyond pop culture.
With their on-screen output drawing audiences back into Filipino stories, these Filipinas’ work and missions behind the scenes are also worth watching and supporting.
