Sometime next year, kids in the Philippines will watch an often neglected part of their country’s history. Not much is written about the Philippine-American war, which lasted from 1899 to 1902, with Americans controlling the Philippines thereafter up to the latter’s independence in 1946.
But John Sayles, the writer and director of Amigo, felt it was an important topic to explore. Sayles, an award-winning independent film maker, decided to make a movie and write a book about it. A Moment in the Sun will be released next year. The movie, Amigo, has already come out and is touring the festival circuits. It has received mixed reviews from critics but reviewers in the Philippines praised it and said it’s an important topic to bring up.
Shot entirely in Bohol, Philippines, the movie stars Oscar Award winner Chris Cooper, Garrett Dillahunt, DJ Qualls and Filipino actors Joel Torre, Irma Adlawan and Bembol Roco. Amigo will make its debut in the Philippines next June.
Sayles and his production team have also partnered up with the Philippine education department and they will begin to air the movie for elementary and high school students.
The Asian Journal (AJ) caught up with Sayles (JS) and in a group interview with other media, discussed the movie after the American Film Institute’s Film Festival at the Grauman Chinese Theater in Hollywood last month.
AJ: This is a period piece. What drew you to writing and making a film about the Philippine-American war?
JS: I think two things. One, it’s an unknown part of history. I started to wonder why I didn’t know about it because I know a lot of about American history and why don’t Filipinos even know about it?
And it was also because it really is the beginning of American imperialism. We really thought of ourselves as an anti-imperialist country and even started the Spanish-American war to free the Cuban people and then we were going to free them and walk away and then somehow, a year later, we’re in the Philippines fighting against Filipinos taking their country away. That was not a comfortable shift in the American consciousness. In fact, there was a very large anti-imperialist movement. Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain were the most famous guys against it and it was a big movement but unfortunately they didn’t win.
There were also racial and religious grounds and other things going on. But a lot of it was that this was a war when the North and South made friends again.
This was the first war that Southerners began to fight under the stars and stripes flag that they had swore they hated, that their dads had fought against when they were confederates. So for Americans, this was an important war. It wasn’t a noble one but it was an important war.
AJ: What kind of research went into this project?
JS: I must have read 100 or 200 books, some were in Spanish because some of the stuff about the war were only written in Spanish. There were a lot of good Filipino historians to read. I’ve read personal diaries. There are some stuff that’s on the web that are good but you track it down you read it and take what you can from it and just try to immerse yourself in it until you feel like, okay I’ve been there I can write it.
AJ: What was it like working with the Filipino cast?
JS: Well, the Philippines has a real film industry so they have a lot of talent. They have a lot of people who’ve made 35mm, 16mm films. They’ve shot with video.
Our cinematographer is one of their premier cinematographers. She was doing Jollibee commercials one day and shooting our feature the next day. So, we really did not have a problem finding a really good crew and really good actors.
What the Philippines doesn’t have is a lot of independent films. They are just starting to have a little independent film movement and a little independent film distribution. Those are things that are just starting up, so it was a great experience for us that the Philippines is one of Asian countries where a lot of people speak English. On our set, a lot of people were speaking English, Tagalog, Ilonggo, Boholano, and Cebuano. Occasionally, the Chinese guys would also speak [in] Cantonese as well. So there was a lot of translating, but it really felt like we had a team making a movie, and that was great.
AJ: Talk about the Philippine cast.
JS: Aside from Joel, whose work I knew at all, was Bembol Roco, who I remember from The Year of Living Dangerously. But then, [when] I hired these people, I just met them and I didn’t know how much they’ve done [and] have not seen much of their work because Philippine movies tend not to travel. But we’d be in a taxi and we’d be chatting with the driver. We’d tell him that we’re making [a movie] and he’d ask who’s in it. Then [we’d] name the cast and he’s [asking] “how’d you get those guys?” So it’s an extremely well-done movie.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Asian Journal Dec 1-3 Midweek Edition, MDWK Magazine pg.2)
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