Direk Eric dreams a dream

In recent years, we have been seeing a lot of famous novels being turned into material for film. The latest and most talked-about, of course, is the big-screen adaptation of Les Miserables.

Director FM Reyes (whose TV past projects have included Maging Sino Ka Man, Lovers in Paris and E-Boy and who is directing the primetime drama Apoy Sa Dagat on ABS-CBN) also dreams of adapting that trend to local movies and bringing great Filipino novels to the big screen. Although he has yet to direct a film, if he does, he’d like to base his movie project on a Filipino novel.

Direk FM, or Direk Eric — as he’s more popularly known — remembers how the late director Marilou Diaz-Abaya, who was one of his mentors, would always ask: “Ano pa ba ang hindi nagagawa sa TV na puwedeng gawin sa movies?” She would encourage him and her other protégés to think of stories that would lend themselves well to film, and come up with ideas for projects that would not only make money at the box-office, but also something they would be proud to be associated with. Direk FM, who has a degree in Film and Audio-Visual Communications from the University of the Philippines Diliman, always dreamed of making a movie based on a Filipino novel. It’s very encouraging, he says, to see the trend now gaining ground in Hollywood, but he hopes that one day, it will also happen in the Philippines.

It’s a dream that he is keeping alive. In fact, there are two novels he is currently studying to see if there is a possibility they can be brought to the screen. If ever, one of these will become his first film project. “I’ve always wanted to do Filipino novels in film, kaso karamihan sa kanila, pag hinulma na sa box-office returns framework ay mukhang mahirap nang ilusot sa producers, at minsan kung meron mang mga gumagawa, hindi naman nasusuportahan ng manonood,” he says. “I feel sad that even if we have many great Filipino novels, kokonti lang ang nagagawa into movies.”

The time will come, he says, when he will be ready to talk about these potential projects in detail. For now, he is happy to be productive on television. He is challenged by his work on TV. He is getting good projects with good stories, and for him at the moment, that is enough. For a time, he was telling himself that he needed to be more mature and wiser before he ventures into film. For the time being, he has committed himself to television if only for the sole reason that this is the best way to tell good stories for free.

As a director, he always considers the story to be the most important element when taking on a project. If he likes the story and believes in it, then he says “Yes”— and after that is when he allows himself to think of the cast. Among the actors he still dreams of working with at this point are Coco Martin, Judy Ann Santos, and having worked already with Christopher de Leon and Philip Salvador, he also hopes that one day, he will add Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos and Sharon Cuneta to the list.

In the meantime, direk FM is focusing all his energies on his current project, Apoy sa Dagat. When it was first presented to him, he was overwhelmed by the story, which was of such magnitude that it could have been a film project. “I was more concerned with what this project wanted to convey,” says its director. “I wondered how fire would persist in water or vice versa. And studying the journey of each character, I realized that it wanted to talk of the great impossibilities we face in life, whether they be personal, family relationships, societal, or just real plain loving, and that in the end, we find measure in knowing our own humanity. That made the project really big for me.”

Although he will be busy with taping in the weeks and months to come, direk FM also hopes to find time to spend with his wife, Rita Avila. The year 2012 brought “grace and wisdom” to him, and this year, he is hoping for more.