The making of Marie Pineda

After film studies at NYU and AFI, this retailing scion is back in Manila for two films she has produced for Cinemalaya, and to work on an upcoming film with director Paul Soriano.

The world is depressing — that seems to be the running theme in many of my movies,” LA-based Filipina film producer Marie Pineda tells me. We are in a coffee shop on a stormy Wednesday evening, inside the same mall where her family’s upscale department store, Adora, is located. Her pleasant air hardly betrays an inclination towards themes of misery, although after having seen the trailers of her two Cinemalaya 2014 entries, Dagitab and Mariquina, I am inclined to believe she could have that emotional dexterity. She is, after all, some sort of a rebel, breaking off from a preordained life and challenging expectations — most of them, her own.

“I wasn’t necessarily forced… I think it was more of just, expected. Even I thought I would naturally fall into the business,” she says. Coming from a family of retailers, Marie was poised to go into the family business after graduating from Ateneo de Manila with a degree in Management Information Systems — a path she abandoned halfway through for more creative pursuits. “When we finally reached a point where we started programming, I was like, ‘What am I doing here?’” she says.

Not exactly against the will of her parents (Eddie Pineda and Marilou Tantoco-Pineda), and instead with their full support, she left Manila to study film at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and then at the Americal Film Institute in Los Angeles. “My parents would ask me, ‘What job are you going to get after college?’ But not far into my studies abroad, they realized that this is really what I want to do,” she says. “I worked in retail for a time, for my mom. I enjoyed that. It was like an education for the business world. As a producer, it really shaped me. It’s super important for me to have experienced that.” She’s back in Manila for two films she has produced for Cinemalaya — her baptism of fire, blood, sweat and possibly even tears into the local independent film industry.

Mariquina

Mariquina, directed by Milo Sogueco, is a period piece set in the ‘80s, the era of big hair and the heyday of Marikina as a bustling industry for shoemaking. What it’s not is a straightforward narration of Marikina’s history. Instead, it goes back and forth, from the childhood traumas of the main character, Imelda (a nod to one shoe-obsessed woman with a famously notorious last name, played by Iza Calzado and Barbie Forteza), and her present, where she is consumed by the preparations for the wake of her dead father, a shoemaker in Marikina, and the unpleasant memories exhumed by his death.

“The good thing about the Philippines is that not much has changed since the ‘80s,” Marie says. “It’s more difficult to do a period piece in the States (which she has done for her thesis film, Unrest). Here, the buildings are the same. It was mostly just about recreating the clothes and the hair, which was fun. The shoe factory is also very much a part of the movie. It’s really like a character.”

Going into the set for the movie, which already had a team in place, Marie had to adjust not just to the pace of production, but the pace of things here in general. “It’s very, very different. Here, it’s fun because you can change a lot of things on the fly. In LA, I’m used to very detailed and exact preparations. For Mariquina, a few days before we had to shoot, we had to shift some things around, change locations. Then I realized that’s how it is here — things always happen that make you have to change everything, so people are more relaxed. There are also less restrictions in terms of hours. I’m so used to working within a certain number of hours, but here, it’s 24 hours! That’s good in a sense that you’re not pressured, but it’s also a lot more taxing,” she says.

On set, Marie admits to being “OC,” to the point of never taking her off her headset so she could hear literally everything that is happening around the set. “Being on set, watching everything come to life is my favorite part. I try to balance being the creative producer and just checking in on everyone. Sometimes I get so swept up in the details that I forget to be on set, which is where I really want to be,” she says. I ask her if she transforms into a strict ladyboss and she laughs, “I really think I look mad sometimes! People would always ask me, ‘Is something wrong?’ But really I’m just concentrating!”

With two films for Cinemalaya, Marie might just be the best person to ask: What exactly does it take to get the approval of the Cinemalaya board? “Well, you need a good script. You have to have a good story. So don’t take that for granted, because it happens a lot. People would just quickly write something and then just shoot. It’s so easy now. Anyone can just buy a digital camera, shoot a movie, and then edit it on a computer. So you have to have a unique story and interesting characters. Also, I think there’s just a feel to it — it’s a whole genre, the indie-Filipino film. You can just tell that it would fit.”

Cinemalaya is divided into two categories: New Breed, for relatively new directors, and Directors Showcase, for more established ones who want to do smaller indie films. Both Mariquina and Dagitab fall under the New Breed segment, debuting Mariquina directed by Milo Sogueco, and Dagitab’s Giancarlo Abrahan V.

Dagitab

Dagitab is an interesting word, I tell her. “Yeah! It’s a deep Tagalog word for ‘sparks’ or ‘electricity.’ The story is about two UP professors who are married and are re-evaluating their relationship, falling in and out of love with each other.” According to Marie, Dagitab is more lyrical. “It’s more European, the framing is more artsy — versus Mariquina, which is a little bit more narative. The director is a poet at heart. He’s the original writer of Transit, and this is his first feature film. The whole crew is from UP — they were very professional and so much fun to work with.”

The trailer successfully relays the feel of the film — romantic and heartbreaking with a lot of long silences and beautiful imagery in subdued colors. As Marie mentioned, you do get at once that it is an independent film that’s made for Cinemalaya. That being so, like many indie movies, it may almost instantaenously alienate a chunk of the market, particularly the portion accustomed to Hollywood-style cinema. I ask Marie how someone who’s never seen an indie film might prepare for the Cinemalaya experience. “If you come in expecting something, you’ll be more disappointed. If you watch mostly blockbuster Hollywood movies, that’s not what you’re gonna get. If you like mainstream Filipino movies, that’s not what you’re gonna get either.”

She adds, “As I’ve been working on these projects, I realize that the mainstream films really have a set formula. If you watch a mainstream Filipino film, you want certain things to be a certain way. You expect it to be that way. I think that directors are conscious of this in that they’re aware that they are not following the mainstream format — not ‘conscious’ as in, ‘I don’t want to make this film look mainstream.’”

Life in progress

“Do you want to make it to Hollywood?” I ask Marie. “Yes, but not necessarily ‘blockbuster’ Hollywood. I want to be part of indie Hollywood movies. So far, I still like being an independent producer. My notion of studio films in the States is that you have to just follow what the studio wants. Whereas if you’re doing your own movie, you have control over it,” she says.

Having been in the country for the past couple of months to shoot yet another feature film, this time with director Paul Soriano, Marie says she misses the food in LA, but she really enjoys the company of her family and friends here — that and getting massages (“Because massages are so much more expensive  there!”) While she certainly doesn’t portray or look the part of the “struggling actor” or filmmaker, for that matter, she exhibits a lot of respect for those who, like her, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film, whether as an actor, director or producer.

“When my parents come to visit, they talk to different people, like the driver of the car service or the waitress. Then they would tell me, ‘He’s an actor! She’s an actor!’ And I would be like, ‘Yeah, every single other person in LA is literally a struggling actor.’ When I finally moved there, I realized it’s true. Everyone is either in the industry or would like to be in the industry. But what’s great is that everyone who’s there, they’re really good because they really, really want do it even if it’s so exhausting sometimes. People have left and given up.”

Marie, however, says she’s in it for the long haul. “I say ‘I’m done!’ all the time, knowing that I don’t really mean it. Everytime I do a project, I realize that this is really what I want. You can really be tested while making films, but if you really want to do it, you will.”

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Mariquina and Dagitab are part of the Cinemalaya Philippine Film Festival, showing until August 10 at CCP, Greenbelt 3, TriNoma, Alabang Town Center, and Fairview Terraces. For information, visit www.cinemalaya.org.