Fun With Marife, Aja and Super Dave

MANILA, Philippines - India may have their Slumdog Millionaire kids, but the Philippines has its own stars – including two boys – in the independent film Mammoth by Swedish director Lukas Moodysson that was screened in competition last February at the Berlinale, the film festival in that German city.

Marife Necesito plays the Filipina nanny of the daughter of Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, two actors who have reaped critical acclaim for their past work. Necesito as nanny has left behind in the Philippines two young sons of her own, played by 12-year-old Jan David ‘Aja’ Nicdao and Martin David de los Santos, 9, who his mom Maristela calls ‘Super Dave’.

Dennis Nicdao, father of Aja, in an email says the young actor, who recently played the young Ninoy Aquino in the musical ‘Cory’, had written about his role in San Sebastian’s elementary school organ, The Staglet, of which Aja is editor.

“Here’s Aja’s opinion of his role as Salvador: ‘Salvador is the typical Filipino older brother who takes care of his younger siblings. He also wants his family to be always together. He will do a lot of things just to bring his mother home. I cannot exactly relate to the role because I have never been separated very long from my family, especially my mom. For the role, I tried to picture myself like my classmates who have at least one of their parents working abroad. I have talked to some of them and they truly miss their mom, dad or both.’”

Martin de los Santos, on the other hand, may be a more familiar face having appeared on TV.

Here’s Maristela’s email on her son’s role in Mammoth: “Martin plays Manuel, younger brother of Salvador... In this movie, he always ask his brother Salvador about their mom, when is she coming back, will she be home on his birthday, what’s she doing on the other side of the world, why did she leave them...

“Martin in one of the interviews he had with the Swedish press once said, ‘I really cried on this movie as I read the whole script... I can feel how hard it is not to have your mother by your side... I can’t imagine how lonely life could be living away from my mom since I don’t have a father since I was born (long story). It’s hard not to have a dad but I know it would be a lot harder not to have a mom.”

According to Dennis, the greatest thing Marife, Aja and Martin experienced in Berlin was “being treated like Hollywood celebrities” even if they are not very well known in the home country, except for Martin who “catches the eye of almost everyone because of his Lucky Me and other TV commercials plus his teleseryes.”

Marife, a stage actress and also a commercial model, was still in Italy as of early March. She started auditioning for the role around May 2007, Dennis said.

“Aja is into musical theater. He auditioned for the role starting in November 2006 and was consistently called back,” the actor’s father said, and that they learned about the audition through a text from Maristela, who in turn heard about it through one of her talent agents.

“Martin went twice, November 2006 and August 2007. They were informed about bagging the roles about September 2007. According to director Lukas, he changed the Philippine script to suit Aja’s age,” Dennis said in his email.

Philippine exterior scenes were shot at Morong and Sabang, Bataan and Olongapo City in December 2007, and in the trailer which can be viewed on YouTube there are scenes of the two boys on the rustic beach, missing their mom.

Philippine interior scenes were shot at Filmvast studios at Trollhatten, Sweden in January 2008, Dennis says.

“Marife worked with Michelle Williams and Gael Garcia Bernal for her New York scenes (where she babysits child actress Sophie Nyweide as the couple’s daughter). After Berlinale, Mammoth is the opening film at the Kosmorama-Tronheim, Norway film festival from March 5 to 10. We are hoping the film makes it to Cannes, Venice and Toronto filmfests. We also hope we get invited, too,” Dennis added in his email.

Producer Lars Jonsson said Mammoth might be shown in the Philippines, but there are no details yet, Aja’s father said.

Other Filipino actors with prominent roles in the film are Perry Dizon and Maria del Carmen. Dizon has appeared in two recent Lav Diaz epics, Death in the Land of Encantos and Melancholia. Del Carmen plays the two boys’ grandma in Mammoth.

Maristela, Super Dave’s mom, says Martin is currently doing taping for Jollytown, which will be aired in April or May this year on GMA-7. The boy is also part of the cast of Totoy Bato.

Maris says Martin “is very bubbly, energetic and never runs out of stories about his favorite reptile ‘Dinosaurs’. He can name all of them, in fact! Martin is very much into drawing and reading. We never leave the house without his favorite book, pencil and paper. He is quite a fast learner. Before he could even talk, he has memorized the alphabet, planets, road signs and can name/identify flags of different countries by just pointing at them!”

Besides his little showbiz career’s busy schedule of three taping/shooting days a week, Martin remains competitive, academic-wise, at the Sto. Niño the Shepherd School, and now ranks 3rd in a class of 26 and is the class vice president, the proud mom says. “Often times he is the one who choreographs dance and song numbers for school programs,” she says.

Dennis, himself a Batang Quiapo, swears that there is still no pirated DVD of Mammoth in Carriedo side.

The kids Nicdao and De los Santos were busy in March preparing for the final exams at the end of the school year.

As for Marife, whose performance has been described in one online review as “glowing,” she could very likely be still in Italy, though in the emailed photos of Berlinale where she walked the red carpet with the rest of the Mammoth cast, there’s a picture of her with Gael and Sophie, whose caption we imagined to be “Y Tu Yaya Tambien.”

Based on the trailer, the couple Garcia and Williams hardly have time for their daughter, who eventually feels closer to Necesito. Garcia goes to Thailand and links up with a bar girl, another single mother. Meanwhile Williams’ character (a busy doctor) gets more alienated from her daughter and hubby, and something terrible is about to happen to one of the kids.

What does the trailer teach us? That films like this should be shown here, a country known for its overseas Filipino workers. Blog posts say the film treaded gently on a delicate topic, very Moodysson, though reviews were mixed and similarities with the films Babel and Crash were drawn. It remains to be known if kids here the age of Aja and Martin would be allowed to see it, because in some countries it was reportedly rated PG-13.