PRINCIPAL photography for this year’s Cinemalaya finalists is ongoing, so we caught up with some participating directors to discuss their current projects:

Mike Sandejas, who helmed Cinemalaya 2006’s crowd-pleaser, “Tulad ng Dati,” is back with “Dinig Sana Kita,” topbilled by daughter Zoe Sandejas and Romalito Mallari. Supporting them are Robert Seña, Lorenzo Mara and Mica Torre.

Comfort zone

He shares: “What makes the movie unique is the fact that it features deaf actors in roles that are not stereotypical. I hope to dispel erroneous notions about them. In ‘Tulad ng Dati,’ the music of The Dawn was my comfort zone. Every scene of that movie was laid out long before it was shot. Here, I allow actors to do the scenes using their instincts.”

Being an alumnus of the indie festival, Mike notes: “Cinemalaya has changed since the last time I was a part of it. Things were a lot simpler then. Now, I feel like I’m joining for the first time.”

For his part, Cinema One Best Director winner, Jerrold Tarog, is now in the post-production stage of “Mangatyanan (The Blood Trail).” He told us that he’ll be holed up in his room for the next three months to edit his second directorial project, which features Che Ramos, Irma Adlawan, Neil Ryan Sese and Publio Briones III.

He shares: “Shooting was so much fun. The six-day out-of-town shoot was particularly memorable. There were different sets of problems each day, and we had to improvise the arrangements quickly. But, regardless of the situation, everybody was happy!”

Strong connection

The film follows Laya, a travel photographer, who is sent to Isabela to document the Labwanan tribe’s harvest ritual, Mangatyanan. She soon develops a strong connection with the tribe because of their shared troubles.

The shoot for Pepe Diokno’s “Engkwentro,” which stars Celso Ad. Castillo, will only start this week. Diokno admits that revising the script and preparing the movie’s technical requirements took a lot of time.

Diokno confides: “The film tackles something that’s been in the headlines lately. In the last decade, at least 814 people—including children—have been killed by ‘death squads.’ This movie puts a human face on the statistics.”

Is the 2009 Cinemalaya lineup something to look forward to? Pepe sums it up: “You go to the movies for an experience—to travel to a world that makes you feel and think. That is what we’ve set out to do.”