Direk Joaqui dreams big

MANILA, Philippines - Born in Manila of Pampango-Ilonggo parentage to a music-loving, English-speaking home and skilled in various related disciplines (like acting, singing, writing and painting), Joaquin Valdes, 26, dreams of becoming a major director of films in the next five to ten years.

Valdes (Joaqui to friends) is ambitious, loquacious and intelligent. In his spare moments he dissects and deconstructs Shakespeare’s Macbeth with his theater friends.

At age ten, he appeared on the Meralco Theater stage in Repertory Philippines’ Evita. He was only with the chorus but something about the kid caught the eye of director Baby Barredo, who grandly announced to Joaqui that “next year you will be my Pinocchio.”

The promise was fulfilled and at 11, Joaqui became a star of the stage. In succeeding years, as a singing actor, he landed important roles in prestigious theater companies like New Voice Company, Dulaang UP and Trumpets.

In the zarzuela Ang Kiri, in one love scene, he yanked off his T-shirt, exposing his upper body and elicited titillated screams from the colegialas at the UP Diliman Theater.

Director Joaquin ‘Joaqui’ Valdes at work: The very nature of creativity is that it doesn’t stop

Through all this, his determination to become a director never wavered. Actually, after graduating from the University of the Philippines (majoring first in architecture and then film), he had started working behind the camera, directing product commercials which remain his bread-and-butter/rice-and-fish.

His first film was a 30-minute feature, Bulong, starring Sid Lucero and theater actress Maita Ponce. “It’s about a society where people are told to do only one thing,” Joaqui notes. “Then all of a sudden a single individual hears a voice, and is inspired to change it (the society). But the tragedy is that at the end, he decides that his idealism, his vision to change the society is not enough. And he decides to conform and be like everyone else.”

The film was adjudged the Best Short Narrative Film in the Beijing International Week in 2008.

His next film was full-length this time, Dagim, shown in the recent Cinema One filmfest in Shangri-la Mall, Mandaluyong City. The director describes it as “a contemporary retelling of the aswang story without having to tell that they are aswang. Again some found it a little cerebral, a little philosophical, but I guess that’s the point.”

Joaqui adds, “It was a good exercise for me to really showcase my aesthetic skill, my visual sense.” The movie starred rocker Mark Abaya and won awards for Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor (Abaya). Some viewers, among them celebrities, said Abaya’s performance reminded them of the late, acclaimed actor Johnny Delgado.

Now, Joaqui is threatening to direct a third movie, a kind of dream film with a stellar cast but, prudently, he does not want to talk about it.

This young director and all-around talent has a reflective and upbeat philosophy towards life and art.

“The very nature of creativity is that it doesn’t stop,” he observes. “We can only participate in creation. When there’s life, you know, babies are being born. New ideas are being born everyday, so we have to keep up. We must be open, you know, to ideas, thoughts, philosophies, be it through a performance, a song, a painting, film, poem…anything.”

With a wisdom beyond his tender years, he concludes: “If you communicate an idea and someone receives the idea, that’s one of the biggest fulfillment that an artist can have.”