A big year for Mercedes

MANILA, Philippines - Mercedes Cabral has enjoyed quite a range of movie roles, but the indie film star neither gets frustrated nor surprised if people remember her most daring ones more.

For one, the 28-year-old actress still gets asked to this day if the “sex scene” between her and Coco Martin in her 2008 debut film, Brillante Ma. Mendoza’s Serbis, was real or not. Rather than getting annoyed, she chooses to laugh it off.

“It’s not frustrating. I just laugh about it. It’s funny that here they just concentrate on one thing, especially if it’s a bed scene, rather than looking at the whole picture. Until now, people still ask me if it’s real or not. I just laugh and think that, is it really that important for them to know? Do they even understand the story of the film or not, or they just don’t care about the film really… It’s kinda sad and pretty shallow for me,” Mercedes tells The STAR in an interview.

2015 has been a big year so far for Mercedes, giving her opportunities to further validate what she’s capable of doing. She tackled her first title role in a foreign film, the Danish love-triangle drama Rosita, which recently earned for its director Frederikke Aspöck the Best Director trophy at the recent Moscow International Film Festival.

Mercedes also scored her first-ever Best Actress award last July at the World Premieres Film Festival for her leading performance in Alvin Yapan’s An Kubo Sa Kawayanan. The film, which will be screened at the UP Film Institute on Sept. 18, marks the third time Mercedes has worked with Yapan. “I’ve always loved his works because he’s the only director that I know who makes stories about Filipino folklore and Philippine culture. An Kubo Sa Kawayanan is really different from all the movies that I’ve done because of the way it was written and executed. It’s a love story between a human being and a house. Alvin Yapan brings life and emotion to inanimate objects in the story, (making) it really special and different.”

The dusky beauty started starring in indie films in 2008. A lot has changed since then. “Independent cinema right now has a bigger audience compared to when I started out. I see more people going to festivals here to watch the films, which is a good thing.”

While a vibrant indie scene has provided alternative narratives, there’s still a dearth of local audiences. More appreciation is coming from overseas where Filipino indie films are a regular fixture in international festivals and competitions. “Our stories are appreciated outside the country because they are different from their culture. We have a lot of beautiful stories but the people here prefer to watch the mainstream films that we all know are just a photocopy of love stories that are done in Hollywood, which is sad.”

Asked to look back on the making of some of her more recent films, Mercedes shares that her most memorable was shooting Brillante’s kidnap tale Captive (2012). “It was my first time doing a film that was shot in chronological order so the emotional build-up for us actors (was) easier. I had fun working with all the actors. All of us got pretty close because we were all together every day for three weeks straight. We felt that we really got the Stockholm syndrome after shooting that film. And of course, working with Brillante Mendoza is always exciting. You never really know what’s happening and what will happen during the shoot.”

The most challenging for her was playing Celia, a dog trainer’s 28-year-old daughter who has the mental age of a six-year-old, in Ralston Jover’s Da Dog Show, which is currently screening at the Montreal World Film Festival in Canada. “It is based on true characters so I immersed myself before shooting the film. I observed and studied the real Celia (who is Nelia in real life). I studied everything about her, how she walks, talks, eats, drinks, cries, everything!”

As for the film project she’s most proud of, Mercedes names Rosita produced by Nordisk Film, which is touted as the oldest-existing film production house in the world. She shot the film, which tells about a middle-aged widower and his adult son falling in love with the same woman — a mail-order bride, early last year in Denmark. “Rosita was one of the best films that I did. I learned a lot from my director (Frederikke Aspöck) and my co-actors (Jens Albinus and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard). It was a surreal experience for me. I just couldn’t believe that I was playing one of the leads in the film and working with Jens and Mikkel. They are far the most brilliant, intense and amazing actors that I’ve ever worked with. And my director, too. She really helped me a lot in building the character of Rosita. She was really patient with me.”

Mercedes candidly admits that because of her filming experience in Denmark, “I was a bit frustrated when I got back here in the Philippines because of the system here in making movies and TV. It’s wrong and it’s really different from Denmark. We worked eight to 10 hours every day, which is the right working hours for every human being, but here in the Philippines we shoot 24 hours and you are not even well-compensated. I just wish that the system here will change someday.”

The actress hopes for a shot at inhabiting more complex characters in the future, like a “psycho/sociopath, alcoholic and drug-abused musician.”

Meantime, Mercedes, who’s part of the top-rating daytime ABS-CBN series Ningning, will next topbill a film titled Tilt by a Swedish-Iranian director Samir Arabdazeh. It will be shot here in the country.

If she’s not busy with work, Mercedes says that you will most likely find her “just at home playing and talking to my dog BoJenkins; he’s a teacup yorkie,” adding, “And I doodle or color or just read.”

Mercedes was actually on her way to completing a Fine Arts degree (Major in Sculpture) at UP Diliman when an acting career beckoned. She plans on resuming her first love “but not in UP anymore. I plan to just look for a sculptor who can teach me.”