Joel sets sights on the future

Doing international films may be a piece of cake for Joel Torre. But he is still as excited about doing one the way a child let loose in Disneyland is.

Joel is the only Filipino in the cast of Surviving Evil, an indie film he shot in Durban, South Africa with Billy Zane (Titanic, The Phantom, Back to the Future 1 & 2).

Helmed by British director Terence Daw, it tells a horror story as familiar to him as the ghost stories he grew up listening to in Bacolod.

But the working conditions were far from Third World.

“Things were really of international quality,” he notes. “We got overtime pay whenever we went beyond the allotted time on the set. I also had my own trailer, which had its own comfort room, dressing room and sleeping quarters during the 40 days I was shooting film.”

Another international film luminary Joel recently rubbed elbows with is New York-based director John Sayles, acknowledged as the pioneer of indie films. Joel toured Sayles around the country for his soon-to-be-published novel Sometime in the Sun. Since the novel is partly set in the Philippines, Sayles visited the country to know the local terrain better.

Joel knows knowledge of terrain is essential in a movie set during wartime — the Filipino-American war in particular. So he gladly took time out from his hectic schedule and showed Sayles around in Tarlac, Zambales and Vigan.

Sayles must have left with a satisfied smile on his face, and better material for his soon-to-be-published work.

Now that Sayles has left the country, Joel is back to his normal schedule: Regular appearances on GMA 7’s Saan Darating ang Umaga and weekly visits to his JT’s Manukan Grille and Manukan (in Valencia St., New Manila; Sgt. Esguerra, Quezon City and Malugay St., Makati).

“My wife Cristy and brother-in-law help me run the business. I also have a very good manager I can fully trust. We prepare the food in a commissary located near the old LVN Studio in Quezon City,” Joel relates.

Thanks to his well-oiled business machinery, Joel can focus on his first love: Acting. The Ilonggo actor returns to his roots in the film Yanggaw, a drama-mystery about a family with dark secrets that will change their lives forever.

Yanggaw, Ilonggo for infected, is one of the seven films included in this year’s 2008 Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival, which is touring selected metro campuses from Nov. 19 to 27.

“Every province has its own culture. Yanggaw is all about those horror stories your yaya told you while you were growing up,” Joel relates.

If you think Yanggaw is his way of capping another eventful year, you’re wrong. Joel is also in Viva Films’ Metro Filmfest entry Baler, where he plays Katipunero and military strategist Teodorico Luna y Novicio.

Co-star Anne Curtis so impressed Joel in the film he predicts she will be among those who will last long in the business.

“She has intelligence and commitment,” he observes.

Joel has the same opinion of Epi Quizon, Sid Lucero and Ryan Eigenmann, whose passion for their craft hasn’t escaped the senior actor’s eye.

Now, wonder no more why Joel cast Ryan and Epi in Bato Bato sa Langit, which he (Joel) will direct next year. The film is a telling commentary about how a family copes with drug addiction.

Joel’s foray into social commentary goes on in The Beerhouse, which he produces for his own film outfit. The Beerhouse, which takes viewers to brothels where one sees the world’s oldest profession up close, has long been in the drawing board. Now that Joel finally tapped Jon Red no less to direct it, nothing can stop it from seeing the light of day.

Now who says artists need to take the sorry state of the film industry sitting down? The dedicated ones, like Joel Torre, will definitely not.