How About Us But Not About Us ’saved’ Direk Jun Robles Lana
The making of the award-winning film About Us But Not About Us helped filmmaker Jun Robles Lana deal with his past trauma and “saved” him from what he went through during the pandemic.
Both written and directed by direk Jun, the movie bagged Best Film award at the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia last year and is one of the official entries at the first Summer Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), which will run from April 8 to 18. The film is also part of the 43rd Fantasporto Porto International Film Festival in Portugal and Mardi Gras Film Festival 2023 in Sydney.
“Like most of us during the pandemic I was going through a lot,” direk Jun recalled during the screening and press conference of the film at the Gateway Mall Cinema 8 recently.
“It just got to a point that I really needed to vent,” so he turned to the one thing that he’s always been passionate about — writing. “I thought I was going to write a journal but siguro lumabas pa rin yung pagiging screenwriter ko. And I just found myself writing these two characters, they’re talking and all.”
The psychological thriller-drama shows two LGBTQ characters having a conversation in a restaurant for two hours. Romnick Sarmenta plays a university professor (Eric) who met up with his former student Elijah Canlas (Lancelot). Romnick and Elijah alternately portray the character of Marcus, the late partner of Eric, in flashback scenes.
The project was so “personal” to direk Jun that he was able to finish writing the script in just three days and it only took five days to shoot the film in one location.
“I was writing non-stop,” he shared.
“I wrote it in three days para talaga akong sinapian and then nung natapos ko siya sabi ko… I don’t know what I came up with. I don’t know how I did this but I felt that it’s a story that I really wanted to tell.”
“I really wanted to tell that story because literally this movie, this process, is really healing for me. And it saved me in some ways than one,” he added.
When he attended the Tallinn film festival, he realized that the flick is “really a gift.” “Usually, I make a movie always thinking about my audience. For this one project, I just really wanted to save myself,” he shared.
All the characters in the film, it’s all him, he said, “The memories that they share with each other are also my personal memories.”
The film is a “soliloquy” and “monologue” of what was going through direk Jun’s mind. The memories, dialogues and lines in the film are all depictions of him.
“Even the most painful ones are my memories. So parang talagang it was the first time that I was able to confront all the things that happened to me. Even the story about the kid being molested, that was my story. It’s just really cathartic for me.”
The toughest scenes to shoot were the flashbacks, shared direk Jun. “That, for me, was the most difficult. Yung kung paano ko siya titimplahin kasi ang inspiration talaga niya ay theater eh,” he said.
“I really wanted to honor the theater as well. Because if we can use dance, if we can use painting and we can use visual arts as inspiration to make films, why not theater? Theater is drama.”
Using theater as his “device” was quite challenging, he said. “In terms of editing, we had several options on how to do it. But at the end of the day, I just had it, let’s keep it simple.”
The two main actors, Romnick and Elijah, have equally displayed their acting prowess as well.
Elijah earlier stated in an interview that his role in About Us But Not About Us is his most challenging so far. “Kasi kailangan magkasundo po kami kung paano i-physicalize eh,” he explained, especially when portraying the character of Marcus, which was also essayed by Romnick at one point in the film. “So, pwede silang hindi perfectly magkapareho yung performance namin as Marcus.”
Elijah, who has a tendency to “overstudy” the script and to “memorize” everything, admitted that “almost all” of the scenes in the movie were “very difficult” to execute.
“Even Kalel, 15 days pa, direk Jun knows this. So he would keep me in check kung masyado bang nagiging mechanical yung performance ko, kung masyadong memorized yung flow,” he shared.
“I had to be natural since it’s real time and it’s very conversational. Those are the things that I watched out for.”
The veteran thespian Romnick, for his part, said it was important to “keep the conversation interesting” and “engaging” since it’s a two-hour film. “(We have to maintain) the conversation (that) it is still thought-provoking, yung tono, yung pacing nung pagsasalita, yung kilos mo sa maliit na space na yun, yung close-up. Isipin mo din,” he said.
“Sinisilip namin minsan kung ano yung gusto nilang mangyaring eksena. And you try to find out from the director: How does he want to tell this part of the story?”
Romnick was also on the lookout for the character of Marcus. “How are we going to make it clear to the audience that this is the same person? And then yun nga, it was also that idea na iba tayo ng perception about each other. Like even if we are together here (in the interview venue), we might not have the same perception about Elijah,” he said.
“Baka pwedeng dun besides some of these small nuances na pwede naming gawin pareho. Tsaka yung pakitungo ng tao. Hindi pareho yung pakitungo ko to Eric and Lancelot to Marcus. So we had to find a way to make kung paano magiging interesting yung timpla ng lahat ng yun,” he added.
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