In 1979, Apocalypse Now, hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time, premiered in Hollywood amid much controversy. Shot on location in Baler, Aurora, then a small fishing village in the Philippines, the film went way over budget and took much too long to shoot. When the filming crew, led by director Francis Ford Coppola, left the shores of Baler in 1977, they had no idea that their film would have such an impact on the local community.
It has become part of local lore that surf boards used by the crew were left on the shore, leading to young teenage boys teaching themselves how to surf. Fast forward three decades later and Baler is now widely regarded as the birthplace of surfing in the Philippines. However, is this the only debris left when Apocalypse Now wrapped its filming in 1977?
This is the backdrop for the upcoming film Apocalypse Child, one of the finalists in the QCinema International Film Festival 2015. Directed by Mario Cornejo and produced and co-written by Monster Jimenez under ArkeoFilms, the movie stars Sid Lucero as Ford, a surfing instructor in Baler whose father is supposedly the Apocalypse Now director. As his mother petitions Coppola to acknowledge his son, Ford has been wasting his youth away, that is, until he is forced to confront his past and the myths surrounding his life.
Sid Lucero as ‘Ford’ the Apocalypse Child
Lucero, an award-winning actor with an eleven-year career behind him, is a favorite among indie film producers. He says shooting Apocalypse Now is unlike anything he has ever experienced before. “Honestly this is the most fun I’ve ever had on a set. It really didn’t feel like working.”
“I mean, come on, we shot on a beach, we finished at what, 8 o’clock most of the time? And we were there for a month!” Lucero laughs as he recalls his experience on set and shares that the hardest thing for him to do was to actually leave Baler after filming wrapped. It was so hard that Lucero found a way to stay behind a few more days. “I fell in love with Baler. I want to live there. I want to die there!” Lucero’s enthusiasm for the town is infectious and will, perhaps, seep into the film’s audience once it shows starting October 23 at QCIFF 2015.
Not to be inhibited by his career as one those indie favorites, he admits he’s a little scared to watch himself in this film. “I think this is the first time I allowed myself to be that exposed.” He reveals that in a way the story reflects certain parts of his life. “I’ve never been so comfortable naked, not physically, but exposed, like your heart’s right there.”
Lucero, whose stage name taken from his father’s role in Batch ’81 began his acting career in the GMA soap opera Hanggang Kailan in 2004. More recently, he played the role of ‘Fabian’ in Lav Diaz‘s Norte: Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (Norte, The End of History) where he was nominated for a Gawad Urian. So this comes as a surprise wherein most of his performances in films and TV comes as raw and intense, but he insists that Apocalypse Child is different, in that there’s a certain aspect to it that is very personal to him. He credits director Cornejo for bringing that out of him.
From ‘Big Time’ to Apocalypse Child
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“I’m not used to working with people like Mario. Mario likes to talk about things, which is great. I like it too because it gives me the right direction,” Lucero recalls. “But I grew up as an actor doing things on the first or the second take and I’m not used to doing it over and over and over again. Every line and every scene is really premeditated.”
Lucero said that this kind of direction made him lose patience a few times. He’d lash out at Cornejo who, thankfully, has the patience of a saint and never lost his temper on set. He believes that all the talking and the patience paid off because it made him understand his character more. “That’s what I appreciate about direk (Cornejo), although it totally goes against the way I do my job. But it works. It’s good to be working with someone who has a different attack. It makes you grow. You learn a lot.”
What’s it like to play ‘Ford’?
He only had a few words to say when asked to describe his character: “Ford, as I understand him, is a character just going through life. Perfect na eh: he’s a surfer, he rides the waves. But I think he could do more. Something happened to him which made him be comfortable being right where he is, which is basically what the film is talking about, as a Filipino.”
When he first met Cornejo, who co-wrote the script with the film’s producer Monster Jimenez, he had no idea how things would go the way they went on set. The story piqued Lucero’s curiosity and he wanted front row seats to see just how Cornejo would shoot certain scenes he considered very personal.
“The sensitive scenes, I like (them) as real as possible. And that’s never easy because you’re basically baring your soul to someone you barely know and to other people, too. Tapos may camera pa. But when I started seeing how I thought Direk Mario saw the film, the more it became appealing to me. It’s nice because everything’s so real and natural, all his scenes.”
Lucero adds, “And the fact that it was supposed to be a comedy but done reverently. And that’s what I like nowadays, comedies that actually say something.”
Set in a tableau of sun, surf, and sand, it will be interesting to see if Apocalypse Child is indeed a comedy as Sid Lucero thinks.
The film is competing at this year’s QCinema International Film Festival, showing from October 22nd thru 31st at select cinemas at TriNoma Mall, Gateway Mall, and Robinsons Galleria.
For screening schedules, you can check out their Facebook page www.facebook.com/apocalypsechildthemovie which also has a nice collection of behind-the-scenes photos and videos. Or you know, find our QCIFF 2015 festival primer here.
