Jasmine shines in indie film

MANILA, Philippines - Having her fair share of the entertainment spotlight, no one would certainly expect Jasmine Curtis Smith to still find some time to attend open auditions for an indie role.

And that’s exactly what she did: Jasmine patiently endured the long hours of queuing and waiting for her turn to try out for a role in Transit, one of the 10 finalists in the ninth Cinemalaya Philippine Film Festival under the New Breed Category. The indie filmfest will run from July 26 to Aug. 4. Transit will have its gala screening on July 28, 9 p.m. at the CCP Main Theater.

“She lined up like everyone else,” Transit scriptwriter/director Hannah Espia shares. “There were hundreds of them because I remember during the first day we had 200 (aspirants) and then the second day, they were about 400.”

During the auditions, direk Hannah adds, she was particularly looking for a mestiza “because the character Yael is half-Israeli, so when I saw Jasmine, I knew she was perfect for the part.”

What came next was the decision to adjust the character’s age from an 11-year-old child to a 19-year-old teener “to fit Jasmine’s age.” Direk Hannah and co-writer Gian Abraham did a slight revision of the story.

“I was super thankful,” says Jasmine. “I really wanted to experience the indie (film) industry because I only knew mainstream in the beginning. It’s also different for someone who really wants to experience real acting — to actually go there in front of the director and producer. I had the number, the batches. And to think that they changed it so that it would fit my end, it’s really something to be thankful about.”

The auditions alone had visibly showed how Jasmine takes her acting seriously these days. No more ifs and buts this time. She aims to reveal that she can go beyond tweetum roles. She handled each challenge that came her way during the actual shoot in the best way she knew how.

“All my lines are in Hebrew so I had to learn the language and certain pronunciation of words that’s very difficult to acquire because we were doing tutorials over Skype. But when we started shooting in Israel and hearing people speak in Hebrew, I found it easier to pronounce or actually make something like the phlegm sound. It was very difficult although I can do it with French; it’s still so different from Hebrew.”

Produced by director Paul Soriano, Transit tells the story of Filipinos based in Israel who find out about the plans of the Israeli government to deport children of foreign workers. The scenes begin and end in an airport during a father and son’s transit flight from Tel Aviv to Manila. Ping Medina plays the male lead Moises, a Filipino single dad working as a caregiver in Herzliya, Israel. Yael (Jasmine) and her mom Janet (Irma Adlawan) are Moises’ neighbors who find out about the new Israeli law. Worried about the thought of being separated from their children, Moises and Janet decide to hide their children from the immigration police by making them stay inside the house. It also stars Mercedes Cabral and Mark Justine Alvarez.

Jasmine considers Transit as her “big acting break” for giving her the chance to explore her acting ability. Her sister Anne, who starred in an indie film abroad, feels proud of her little sister’s film debut.

“She (Anne) said that she still wants to experience the indie industry here. It’s so raw and you really got to play your character. It’s different from mainstream or TV where you have to follow certain people to play a character. It’s always based on what the audience wants but in indie, there’s so much room to be playful and look at your own because they give you that space to be creative.”

The cast spent 10 days in Israel to shoot most of the scenes. “We shot in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea,” says direk Hannah.

“I have an Israeli actor playing my boyfriend, Omer Juran,” relates Jasmine. “He helped me how to deliver my lines with right pronunciation and emotion. Tita Irma played like a real mom to me during our shoot in Israel. She helped me a lot and I’m so thankful to her. During free days, we explore Jerusalem together.”

Aside from Transit, Jasmine also stars in another indie titled Puti for CineFilipino in September. She, too, stars in Undercover, TV5’s latest action series topbilled by Derek Ramsay.

“I feel blessed because when I decided to stay here in Manila after finishing my high school in Melbourne, I had some apprehensions like what if there’s no project for me? But God is so good. Now, I have two movies and a TV show. If it’s meant to be, it will happen and it will work and I’m so thankful to God.”

Jasmine also sees the importance of education that she always makes it a point to attend to her classes at Ateneo de Manila University on time. She is a freshman student taking up Communications Arts.

“I only tape or shoot after my classes. It may be tiring but I don’t feel it’s a burden because I’m enjoying what I do.”

(All Cinemalaya films will be shown at CCP Theaters, Trinoma, Greenbelt 3 and Alabang Town Center cinemas.)