GERMANY: Filipino director, Brillante Mendoza captivates Berlinale audiences with a soul-searching film that follows of group of people kidnapped by Islamist separatists

Record ID: 471049

  • Title: GERMANY: Filipino director, Brillante Mendoza captivates Berlinale audiences with a soul-searching film that follows of group of people kidnapped by Islamist separatists
  • Date: 13th February 2012
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 12, 2012) (REUTERS) ( *** BEWARE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF 62nd INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL VENUE, BERLINALE PALAST VARIOUS OF U.S. ACTRESS AND MODEL, ANDIE MACDOWELL ARRIVING AT RED CARPET MEDIA VARIOUS OF MACDOWELL MEDIA FRENCH ACTRESS, ISABELLE HUPPERT, WHO PLAYS FRENCH SOCIAL WORKER, THERESE BOURGOINE IN 'CAPTIVE' ON RE
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2012 12:00
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  • Location: Germany, Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVAAKVQ7IK0ZQ88YVCZZUCV7U3VL
  • Story Text: U.S. actress Andie MacDowell graced the Berlinale red carpet on Sunday (February 12) looking every bit the star, and in pre-valentine red as she attended the premiere of festival competition film, 'Captive', by rising star director, Brillante Mendoza.
    Shot with a hand-held camera, the film is loosely based on real life events and tells the story of a group of holiday makers and missionaries kidnapped in the Philippines by separatist organisation, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).
    Against all odds over the course of around a year in captivity in the jungle with short food supplies, including frequent shootouts with the Philippine army and encounters with unfriendly animals, the victims come to bond with their captors, in what Mendoza says is a sign of the spirit of human perseverance.
    "Well the most important thing in this film is that it is all about humanity. It's all about perseverance," the fifty-one year-old Mendoza said from the red carpet.
    Outside Pakistan and Afghanistan, the greatest danger of kidnap in Asia is in the Philippines, but says Mendoza, the film is about more than that.
    "It is not about the issues, it's not about unresolved issues and conflicts in Manila. I think every country have their own stories, their own small problems and whether you are coming form the first world or from the third world , but I think that when you talk about humanity, when you talk about self-perserverence, it is something that we can all relate, it is something that we can all believe in and do something about , so this is what this film is all about."
    A scene showing the Christian burial of a hostage echoes a later scene showing the Muslim burial of a kidnapper, stressing fundamental similarities between the two groups.
    In the film, the rebels are not depicted as straightforward villains. They may be able to perpetrate brutal acts, but they also display kindness to their hostages.
    "As a film-maker, one should never take sides. One should show what is really happening. One should show what is truth and what is real. Even if it goes against your own principles, even if it goes against your own beliefs and philosophy as a film-maker" said Mendoza, adding: "I think it is also a wake-up call, like for everyone. For all the viewers to see what is going on in the mind of this group this separatist group the ASG," said Mendoza, who interviewed members of the group, the government, the military and former hostages while researching the film.
    Huppert said shooting the film was one of the most challenging experiences of her career.
    The director sought to immerse the actors in an experience as similar as possible to that of the hostages, taking them out for five days on a boat and then into the jungle.
    "After a few days of the film I really thought and said to myself, it was the most incredible and extreme experience I have never lived in my life as an actress. Because it was so far form everything I have been through before and yet it was beyond doing a movie," Huppert said.
    Mendoza frequently did not give them a script and segregated the actors playing the kidnappers and those playing the victims, allowing them to meet only on the day of the "kidnapping" when both were in costume.
    "Basically, we didn't have the feeling it was fiction, but it was reality every day. So at the time, we had to react to what was happening, be it to the heat, be it to exhaustion, be it to fear ... we had to reduce this boundary between reality and fiction," Huppert added.
    Huppert, a highly nominated actress and French superstar said her role in the film had been part of an ensemble piece with no one person stealing the limelight. An added element of the film is Mendoza's decision to mix professional actors with non-actors.
    "Well I think it was an experience as not being an actress precisely. It was about giving up all your references about what you previously usually know about doing movies. I think Brillante Mendoza invents his own way of doing which doesn't look like anything you can experience beforehand I think the whole experience of this movie was about that," Huppert said.
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