LOS ANGELES?In our e-mail interview with Brillante ?Dante? Mendoza about his movie, ?Tirador (Slingshot),? finally getting a commercial run in New York, we also asked him to share more details on how he cast French actress, Isabelle Huppert, in his next film, ?Captured.?

?I was having my retrospective in Sao Paolo,? began the Cannes 2009 Best Director awardee for ?Kinatay? on how he hired Isabelle, who won the Cannes Best Actress award twice and is the most nominated actress for the Cesar Award, the French equivalent of the Oscars. ?I found out that Isabelle was also in town, so I went to her hotel to say hello. She was very accommodating, and we ended up discussing my next project, tentatively titled ?Captured.? She was very curious as to how I direct actors based on what she saw in ?Kinatay? in Cannes, where she was the head of the jury. She was very impressed with Coco Martin.?

Dante, one of the most prolific and acclaimed exponents of the Philippine New Wave, continued, ?I asked her if she wanted to go back to the Philippines (Isabelle had been to the country before, as reported by PDI?s Bayani San Diego Jr.). She replied, ?Why not?? We exchanged e-mails after that. And, she loved the pictures we took at the hotel.?

The multiawarded filmmaker added, ?I had lunch with her again last July 10 in Paris. She asked me if Coco and Isabel Lopez are also part of ?Captured,? and I said, ?Yes.? She was very pleased. She?s looking forward to making this film and collaborating with Filipino actors.?

On how ?Tirador? is significant to him personally and professionally, Dante answered, ?It?s one of my most enjoyable and challenging movies because of the logistics and the way I shot the film. It was guerrilla filmmaking at its best. It was during the shoot that I decided, ?This is how I want to make films in the future.? I had so much faith in ?Tirador? that I had to mortgage my house just to finish the film. Until now, I still owe Roadrunner (a post-production house) some money, but I never regretted spending on it.?

Portrait

?Tirador,? which was written by Ralston Jover and is described as a ?verité portrait of petty thieves and hustlers,? starts its commercial run in New York this weekend at the Producers? Club?s Indiehouse theater, the latest addition to Manhattan?s arthouse cinemas. The theater is located in midtown Manhattan, at 358 West 44 st., between 8th and 9th avenues.

Winner of the Caligari Jury Prize for Excellence in the 2008 Berlin Film Festival and other international awards, ?Tirador? stars Martin, Kristoffer King, Jiro Manio, Jaclyn Jose, Nathan Lopez and Julio Diaz.

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