MANILA, Philippines ? After his debut film ?100? bagged five trophies, including Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Mylene Dizon), Best Supporting Actress (Eugene Domingo) and Audience Choice in this year?s Cinemalaya festival, bemedalled playwright (?Last Order sa Penguin?) and screenwriter (Star Cinema?s ?Caregiver?) Chris Martinez is the director with the most awe-inspiring upward trajectory. Yet Martinez graduated from UP Diliman with a BS Business Administration degree and describes himself as ?a complete worrier.? But now, he takes a curtain call and spends a few moments to catch his breath and share his thoughts with SIM.

SIM: What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in getting your first full length feature film done?
Chris Martinez: There really wasn?t any hurdle so big that made me lose my head. I would say we came in quite prepared?logistically, financially and artistically. It went smoothly by indie standards. In fact, we were the first to submit the full production to the committee. We finished on time, beating the set deadline.

SIM: Where did storyline for ?100? come from?
Chris: It?s a composite of a lot of experiences and insights. The idea first came when I came home from a necrological service for a theater professor friend in UP. I must have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, humor, sadness, grief and joy?it was a theatrical tribute and a grand reunion for most theater students and practitioners. When I experience events like that, I always start questioning my own mortality. Death has always been a major hang up for me. Siguro, coming from a Catholic high school for boys, you tend to question things once you get to discover and experience the intellectual freedom of a non-sectarian university. Alam mo na, growing up in UP and being exposed to all thes books in the Main Lib... Existentialism! Camus! Sartre! The absurdists! The plays I read when I was young! Let?s not even mention Woody Allen.

SIM: What kind of director are you?
Chris: I always think of myself as the conductor of an orchestra. I am so open to suggestions, I pick my staff?s brains and my goal is always to bring out the best in my cast and staff?I let them be artists too. But I always start with what I want. I start with the vision that I have, and which I share with everyone?from the actors to staff to the production. steer their minds, souls and talents to work toward that common goal? essentially, my goal!

SIM: What makes you different from other directors?

Chris: My humor. My sensibility. I?m pop. I?m contemporary. I?m cosmopolitan. I don?t deny myself all the influences around me?local or foreign. This is what I am?I am middle class. I grew up in front of the TV watching MTV, ?Voltes V,? ?Sesame Street? and ?Eat Bulaga!? I eat in the carinderia, at the same time I gorge on Spiral?s buffet. I can be so flexible being in the middle?I can empathize with and, yes, ridicule everyone. My voice is in the city. My rhythm is its heartbeat.

SIM: After the success of this first film, what?s next for you?
Chris: A comedy titled ?Here Comes the Bride,? for Joji Alonso?s MLR films and Octo Arts. It?s a farce that?s partly fantasy and sex-comedy. Expect a lot of comedy of manners and errors and naughty fun. LRC