NeoL

In most Asian horror films, including Japanese, there is a traditional stereotype that female characters who have a grudge against men will seek revenge on male-dominated society. However, this type of tradition has recently been undergoing a process of change.
This symposium will develop around interesting questions such as :
1) How do female creators view the typical Asian horror format, and how do they adapt it to their own styles?
2) What does the fear these women express actually represent in real life?
This theme of directors who have shot or have shot a horror film, something of a horror film theme, it is the decision of a horror film loving female directors.


ーーPlease welcome Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo Truth of “Untrue”, Antoinette Jadaone “Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay”, and Mattie Do of “The Long walk”.


Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : Thanks for inviting me and please watch our film.

Antoinette Jadaone : Thank you for taking time to be here at this symposium show and I hope you will be enlightened by the discussion of women and film.

Mattie Do :　I am so happy you guys are here and I’m from Lao and I hope that you’ve been enjoying all the films and if you’ve never seen a Lao film mine plays tomorrow soo umm… I can’t wait to talk to ya’ll and please ask any questions that you have about the film and about female. I would like to talk will ya’ll freely.


ーー So the closed idea is we talk about ah well we know your profession for horror films ah well first of all do you actually like the genre? Is there any film or director that you are inspired by? Would you like to maybe name them?

Mattie Do : I love the genre films you guys. My manager has been offering me different films that is not genre and I am kinda like urmm…there is a reason why I love genre films because it allows to expand certain subject matters into a more extreme landscape so if we were to make this subject matter in dramas or documentary it might seem a little preachy, but when we do it in genre you can be flexible with reality or motivation you might have and you can have fun.. and you know that is why I like genre film. I like Guillermo del Toro, Darren Aronofsky, and Edgar Wright.

Antoinette Jadaone : Like Mattie said, I’m not very fond of horror films but the few ones that I decide to watch still haunt me till this day like “the Sadaho of the Ring” and umm ah my first film, “Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay”, a horror queen, someone who is always casted in horror films and these are the horror films I grew up watching. Horror films that are both scary and funny at the same time because in the Philippines those are the horror films that sell, the ones that are both scary and funny.

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : I really don’t like horror films.. I want to be honest.. I don’t like horror films and I don’t watch horror films and umm I’m really scared… I am scared right now. But I try actually I try writing horror films.. so for the first two sentences I got really scared and I can’t pee by myself anymore. So now I think what I like is doing psychological thriller films because you can see the person and kill that person.
And with horror there are so many entities and demons and I don’t know how to kill them so… I don’t like horror films.





ーーSo Mattie it seems like your symposium partners are not that keen so ah what can you say to someone like that or feel that way?

Mattie Do : I mean with Sigrid’s idea that she controls happiness that I really love that because umm I think that there is a gap of what people are thinking horror. We say genre a lot, thrillers are genre and falls into genre thriller so I agree with you but you may be more of horror fan than you think because really the real horror is to me when I make films are the people, humans. I think humans and humanity and society are so much more horrific than any ghost or demon or monster you encounter.. so you might be a secret horror lover.. said the different definition of horror films like horrific government you know out…(laughter)

ーーSo the sense of horror, I suppose it comes from fear, so what really are the difficulty in depicting fear, sense of fear on screen or in the script?(silence, and laughters)

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : Why are you guys looking at me?


Mattie Do : No , but I’m so trilled so much about the fear of each other of trust and paranoisance.





ーーLike, how are you tapping into peoples’ fear?

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : In conceptual umm “Untrue” is actually my first psychological thriller film and I usually do love stories and romantic comedies.. so this is my first time to do ah this kind of genre.. in order for the character to feel fear I need to know first what he loves what he or she loves because I think when you lose someone that you love that’s fear. I think that in order for you to feel or experience fear, there is a sense of loss and you know you should know what is missing on that.


Mattie Do : The sense of loss is very universal too, that’s why I love horror and I love genre shows because I find genre is something that can cross any cultural boundaries.. umm when you say we make romance you make romance film I told this in a lot of interviews where I don’t think romance and comedy necessary cross- cultural boundaries because the way Japanese person falls in love is not the way a Tai person falls in love or Lao person falls in love and sometimes when I watch like when I see in American love movie I’m just like “god he is a dick, why does he even like her?” or “why does she even like him, he is a total dick?” and umm or “she is psycho likes a man who exceeds drinking she needs to go to a psychologist, I wouldn’t love her” and fear is something … and loss and pain is something we all understand no matter what culture we are from and that is why I think it is important to have genre films. They call manic pixie dream girl we can never forget that the word manic is in that too, it’s not cute you guys, it’s crazy. This type of character/type of a woman constantly depicted, actually Japan has that a lot too, that we are cutie kawaii girls that everyone is in love with for some reason but she is really a psycho.

Antoinette Jadaone :I haven’t done any horror films but the closest to a horror film I have made is I just finished shooting, it’s about the horror of growing up. I think in order to depict fear successfully is to put a character in a situation that she can control because when you take away the control from a character umm that is when you are most afraid of because you can’t do anything about it and just leave it to do whatever to the universe to save you from that situation.

ーーAnd ah you all mentioned at the beginning that directors like this still small in number, now that you are very active and in the field you feel that you are sort of paving the way or you think you have some of the responsibility or any thoughts on working in the film industry?(laughters)

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : This is horror you know. Always the first one. Umm as a female director in the Philippines, a lot of female directors in Philippines, I don’t think there is an issue about female directors directing films in the commercial independent industry. But I think there are sometimes female directors from the Philippines are being boxed they just doing love stories and maybe light stories and there’s nothing wrong with that, but not a lot of female directors who directs genre films like psychological thriller, horror films and that’s one thing, I’d like to see more in the Philippines for female directors who direct more genre films.


Antoinette Jadaone : Umm like Sigrid said, we are very lucky to be filmmakers in the Philippines because unlike in Hollywood or other parts of the world, some parts of the world, women film makers find it umm hard to break in industry. In the Philippines, it’s the other way around. You can be a female, you can be a male, you can a part of LGBT, you can be a genre film maker, it doesn’t matter. If you want to make a film, the local industry allows you to make films and it’s a good thing but also a bad thing because since there is a lot of opportunities for filmmakers to make films umm there is also little time given to filmmakers to actually develop their film, develop their scripts before giving birth to their film and showing it to the world. So in terms of opportunities, we have no problem of that sort in other country.

Mattie Do : Umm I think I’m in a really rare situation because I am the only woman in the entire country that’s ever made a film so, but it helps because I’m 25 % of film industry have acted film director, it feels like we have a lot of minority (laughs)
25% of filmmakers of Lao is female (laughs) what do you got? Umm it is extremely difficult for me to make films, but it’s not necessary because I am a women though, ah because we don’t have funding in Laos, there is no government funding, there is no grants, umm we don’t have investors or financers, it’s a very strange scrappy situation umm and it’s difficult for me to apply to grants and funding overseas because there’s like restrictions, so even though I am a Lao person telling about Lao stories only having Lao actors, but seeing my American passport, they are like I am not authentic, I have a lot of white people telling me that I am not Asian enough and that fucking sucks. You can translate that first. You can censor me too. Umm I do think the three of us are real-time position globally right now because people want more female perspectives, people want more films run on by females, so we are so I do feel real fortunate that we are making films at this moment because we are more open to it. Even when I first started making films, in Laos we didn’t have problem because they were so excited to have a female making films. Umm it was more of a foreigner problem, where foreigners would for some reason I wasn’t the director that they wanted to be a director of and like I didn’t deserve it because I didn’t go to school and I came out of nowhere with no background and I think that bothered people, but in the west, I think that there was this idea that women are more emotional or maybe they couldn’t helm a film or maybe they be premensing and things will fall apart I don’t know, but there have been some issues in the West, where they were like ohh she’s mad because she’ s a girl uhh but now it is better I do think, I do feel a change.
One thing to add I noticed you guys, when we make films, if you are a guy and you look like super bachet crazy and kick over a C stand or scream in a PA or get really demanding like I must have that stupid rig or whatever, I must have it I don’t care if it’s over budget , it’s like he’s such an artist ohh he is so demanding like what an amazing director you know “KANTOKU-SAMA” but if I did that they be like WHAT A BITCH you know SO EMOTIONAL I’ll never work with her for again, that is real, even now. I still think that is still real.





ーーIs that the case? How is it in the Philippines?

Antoinette Jadaone : I’m trying to.. because it is different in the Philippines, the romantic comedy genre is really the biggest selling genre in the Philippines, so and romantic comedy are filmed by mostly female directors so I guess we don’t have that much problem like when a director or female director like goes berserk in a film set. I haven’t heard any comment that would say like how you experienced it, maybe because umm female film makers bring in the money to these producers and money is power so I guess in that case, women film makers in Philippines are really, powerful in that sense.

ーーDo they go berserk?

Antoinette Jadaone : umm let’s talk about that over beers AHAHA　

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : I agree with Antoinette, Antoinette actually is a block buster director in the Philippines. So whatever she does, even if she doesn’t dress nicely on set or she shouts at you, it’s fine. But let me tell you a story about my experience here umm with my film “Untrue”, so I was showing the trailer to some of the film makers I won’t mention their names, to protect me from horrific accident

Mattie Do :　becoming a horror movie haha

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : So as I was showing this film, trailer, it’s a psychological thriller by the way, so please check it out. And then, there are some film makers, they said “Oh, it’s really good. It’s nice I can’t believe you are a filmmaker” (laughs) I mean that’s kinda …


Mattie Do :　What does that mean? (laughs)

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : I know! And I been doing films since 2012, it was a joke, it was a joke from a male filmmaker and it felt it’s not a joke for me. So you see, because there are not a lot of female filmmakers from the Philippines who does maybe thrillers, action films or genre films, so from that comment I realized that I think, what we need to work out in the Philippines is for the people or the audience or the filmmakers to stop boxing certain director. Even if for example, Antoinette has done so many romantic comedies and whatever, but she did “Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay” and now she is moving to another genre films. You see, directors should be marketed as a director and not box them with the last film they did.


I think that umm there is a problem with genre, and that is that it looks very male dominating, not just in the Philippines, globally, it looks very male dominated, the best known genre, typically male and you see a lot of males in genre, when you go to a genre festival, it’s like a sausage party you know and umm but the reality is because I work in genre full time, it’s one of the most supportive and just friendly environments wouldn’t you make a regular film that is not genre, you sometimes feel alone doing your own kind or once in a while you see friends at festivals. But in genre, you are like people help each other and come out for you any time something happens you have like this huge fantastic genre community that’s like there for you and they all know.. well we all know each other’s business because of the smaller sub section of cinema right. Umm this is one thing that I wished more women will realize is that it looks like it’s not welcoming because it is mostly men, but if they just get into it and start doing their source, which drastically mean female perspective in genre because women’s laughs are fucking scary umm they would find it very supportive hospitable group of people in front of them.





ーーWell, Sigrid I think you are very suited for horror films, I mean in “KitaKita”, in Hokkaido, a woman broken hearted she lost her eye sight and then suddenly someone starts stalking , isn’t that nothing but horror?

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : Well, umm it’s not suppose to be a stalker film. It’s suppose to be about giving back and helping each other even if you don’t know that person so you see it’s not that horrific.

ーーIt could be an horror in this man’s perspective.

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : Yeah yeah, I think umm with actually with all my films, all are love stories and there is always some horror field to it I think, it depends on your definition of horror because for me, once there is love in every situation, there will always be horror, even in life. Because I think if you experience love, you should be scared, if you are not scared, that means you are not in love.

　
Mattie Do : Being married to you must be FUN.

　
　
Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : The application is open now.


　　
Mattie Do : Line up bachelors. Line up!





ーー“Untrue”, your film, yes it’s love story but it was horrific and I was very scared young.

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo: No, I think I like horror films now.

Mattie Do :　That’s right. Sign your name in the book.

　

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : I enjoy it too





ーーWe lost Lilia Cuntapay is there anyone who will become the Philippino horror film scene, is there anyone to replace her? How about in Laos? Do you have anyone equivalent to her?

Antoinette Jadaone : Lilia Cuntapay in this horror series, film series called “Shake, Rattle, and Roll”, it’s some production company that produces that film every year featuring 3 different horror stories and Lilia would be usually be part of that film, but I think with the advent of the romantic comedies, the horror genre in the Philippines started to lie down and that’s also the time that Lilia Cuntapay stopped getting ah projects horror projects that’s why she had to accept projects that are not horror, even rules that are really small rules like just passing by, just someone eating in a restaurant so I don’t think there’s someone that can replace Lilia Cuntapay in the horror genre or any other horror genre in the Philippines.

Mattie Do :　Yeah, she is legendary you know. You can’t, there’s no replacement for that.
　

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : How can you replace her.

Mattie Do :She is fantastic you know. We don’t really have a scream queen in Laos. Umm and honestly it’s a little strange because I do tend to cast the same people in my films over and over again but there’s reason for it, umm because I only work with non-actress people I found just around my friends, people on the street, someone at the market, umm so it takes us a certain amount of trust and training to be able to do that and so that is the reason why I keep casting them over and over again, but I actually would like for them to explore as many different kinds of roles and characters as they can and I don’t want any one of them to be oh that person is for that role umm or this guy is only for that role so…but it would be fun to have a scream queen who’s ultra-passionate about being the horror queen, that would be super fun, but at this moment we don’t really have someone umm and neither am I developing any of my actress to be that particular kind of role, but if they wanted to I’d be super open to but.. (laughs)


ーー Are you all familiar with the film, “One Shot of Death”, Japanese ah speaking of horror comedy, that I think is equivalent and Perhaptness is a film director and he is asked by this TV company to come up with a film, you know he is in a way boxed so he is asked to make something fast/cheap ah and so so in equality. The question is if you receive the same offer; fast, cheap, so so quality, would you take that offer? I asked this question because what do you hold most dear to yourself? I mean is that money that you want to secure? Or what do you think is something to compromise or what are the priorities?

Mattie Do :You guys it’s Philippines and Laos, it’s always cheap haha
This is like the biggest budget film I have ever done, it was like 250 thousand dollars and I was like WOWW MONEYS

Antoinette Jadaone : In the Philippines, the usual process would be really fast. We can make films as fast as it’s done in two months from production to editing, to film showing and we can make films as first one was like 300 thousand US dollars and even lower,

Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo : So I think if it be given the chance to do something fast and cheap, no I won’t take it, no not anymore. Because it’s cheap enough. How can you go cheaper than that. It’s too much and I think if I will make a film that cheap, I would star on the film, I would be the crew, and maybe I can get all the money for my own.

Mattie Do : I won’t sacrifice time since I work with non-actress and I have skeleton crew, this is the biggest crew I ever had in life and it was 20 people and I was like damn it’s too big. Umm and so if I have a small crew and little equipment, I will not sacrifice time because I want my performances to be right, umm I want the setting to be right. Like you said, I am doing everything, when you have such small budget, you do have to do everything and I have two guys, Brandon and Mathew friend from my crew, they know we do every job, they are my grip they are my gappers, they are also acting and washing dishes, WE ARE DOING EVERYTHING as same as I am, I’m doing makeup, helping the costume girls, I’m directing, and I’m working with the camera crew, so I can not sacrifice time if that is the situation I am put in you know.

Antoinette Jadaone : I would like to say something also that usually 200 thousand dollars to 300 thousand dollars is the cheapest I set myself to accept a certain project. It depends on maybe just one location and maybe depends on how many actors, two or three but nothing more than that. Because not only because, for mine comfort and it’s also because I don’t want other film makers to accept these super low budgets because I want to set the standards.. am I making sense? Because a lot of emerging film makers are accepting lower budget films because they are just starting it’s fine when you do your first maybe, but when you do your second one and third one, it becomes an industry that you accept low budget films, which is not good.

Mattie Do : You also have to understand the differences, because Japan does this. Japan is like low budget, fast shooting, 10 days of film, 7 days to make the film. So such long hours, shooting like you guys, it’s something that I wished that people would adjust because after a while you know your crew gets burnt out and it becomes dangerous, and in Philippines, recently an actor died on set because they were not paying attention, there was carelessness, and so I hope that this does not become a norm and can be improved and these people don’t come to us and demand that we make it for short time short money like wa’am ba’am thank you ma’am because it’s not our comfort but there is also difference in cost like Japan and Philippines is much more costly and much more developed than Laos. In Laos, we built our entire house, that’s set the entire film takes place, for 5 thousand dollars like you couldn’t do that in the Philippines. Build an entire house with 2 bathrooms, working toilets and a shower for the crew for when we were tired or needed to go pee and that was all for 5 thousand dollars, you can’t do that in Japan you know.

“Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay”
Director : Antoinette Jadaone
Cast : Lilia Cuntapay, Joel Saracho, Geraldine Villamil

The story follows Lilia Cuntapay through the days leading up to a fictionalized awards night where she is nominated as a Best Supporting Actress for the very first time.

“Untrue”
Director : Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo
Cast : Cristine Reyes, Xian Lim,

Two lonely Filipinos living in the country of Georgia find solace and companionship in each other, until the strange apparition of a woman begins to haunt their relationship.

“The Long Walk”

Director:Mattie Do
Decades after a witnessing a fatal car accident near his isolated home in rural Laos, a middle-aged man is left alone with his regrets and the unsettled spirit who still walks the road where she died, in this hauntingly dramatic third feature from Mattie Do (Dearest Sister).
©Lao Art Media, Screen Division, Aurora Media, 108 Media