[Click here (recommended) for desktop mode.]
Ang Lihim ni Antonio
English Title: Antonio’s Secret
Year of Release: 2008
Director: Joselito Altarejos
Screenwriter: Lex Bonife
From a story by Lex Bonife & Joselito Altarejos
Producers: Digital Viva & BeyondtheBox
Cast: Kenjie Garcia, Jiro Manio, Nino Fernandez, Honey Grace Capili, Shamaine Buencamino, Ricky Ibe, Kurt Martinez, Jay Perillo, Ajit Hardasani, A.A. Fernandez, Aimee Fernandez, Agatha Behar, Josh Ivan Morales, Lui Manansala, Ernie Zarate, May-i Fabros, Annelle Durano, Wilfredo Quejencio, Franklin Junbic, Lex Bonife, Almhir Rahib, Marvin Reyes, Arkee Tunisia, Liza Bergencillo, Gamaica Mel Pilar, Wilma Lusanta, Mirafe dela Cruz, Dindo Flores, JM Cobarrubias, Nick Pichay, Brent Fernandez, Cel Santiago
Antonio, 15, discusses the rudiments of budding sexuality with his contemporary Nathan and their much younger friend Mike. Living with his mother who works at the community health center, he’s typically hesitant about admitting his same-sex attractions. After a bout of drinks, when Nathan spends the night in his bed, Antonio starts caressing his friend—who reciprocates his advances. Although they wind up having sex, Nathan starts avoiding him afterward. Mike asks Antonio about Nathan’s distance so he’s forced to confess what happened. One day, his father’s parents drop off his uncle Jonbert, who plans to join Antonio’s father in Dubai but has to work on his documents first. The irresponsible and sexually active Jonbert hangs out nightly with his friends, drinking and carousing, and occasionally agrees to have sex with gay men for extra cash. Jonbert finds his uncle irresistible and sees an opportunity to expand his range of experience.
Headlined by a youtful-looking lead actor who was of age when the film was produced (just in case anyone might wonder), Ang Lihim ni Antonio emblematizes the peak of Joselito Altarejos’s explorations of queer-male erotics in the present millennium, right before social media would intensify experimentations with sexualities of all types. Even with an openness to various possibilities, negotiations with oneself and others would still always be a mightily involved and conflictive process, akin to traversing an emotional and psychological minefield. Altarejos is careful enough to withhold judgment on his male characters’ actuations, so that Antonio’s queer curiosity, his childhood friend’s homophobia, and his uncle’s machismo-induced horniness are all arrayed for those who wish to inspect each one more closely. In fact, he endows the most empathy in the plight of Antonio’s mother—and for good reason beyond standard feminist commitment, considering the plot twist assigned to her. Throughout a nearly three-decade career, he has also been able to develop into a topnotch soft-core filmmaker, far and away the country’s best when it comes to MSM scenes. This enables him to invest his work with a unique tension between erotic fascination and social anxiety, evocative of the cherished values of film noir even when all the other elements of noir are missing.
Back to top
Return to Canon Decampment contents
Go to alphabetized filmmakers list
Unfriend
Year of Release: 2014
Director: Joselito Altarejos [as J Altarejos]
Screenwriter: Zig Madamba Dulay
Producers: Center Stage Productions & Solar Entertainment
Cast: Sandino Martin, Angelo Ilagan, Boots Anson-Roa, Shamaine Buencamino, Jay Enriquez, Maichel Fideles, Jill Singson Urdaneta, Angeli Bayani, Richard Quan, Arlene Pilapil, Philippine Drag-Ons, Lex Bonife
On Christmas Eve, David has breakup sex with his older partner Jonathan but has difficulty letting go. He lives with his grandma Ester because his mother works overseas. The tolerant but distracted Ester asks David to observe their family rituals and bring along Jonathan but David makes excuses for his ex. On Christmas Day, David finds that Jonathan has announced his new relationship on his internet account. Despondent, David wanders the streets and enters a bar, where he leaves with a stranger with whom he has a one-night stand in an unfinished building. Since Jonathan seems intent on shutting him out, David begins indulging in self-harm activities while maintaining a semblance of normality.
Responding to an actual news report about an internet-obsessed teen shooting his same-sex ex-lover as well as himself in a shopping mall, Joselito Altarejos devised a feature that departs from the typical cautionary tale in subtle but effective aspects. The expected condemnation of constant social-media usage is avoided; everyone in the film, as in real life, shares as much of their lives as they can with the worldwide web, although the fact that several of us do so as public figures, where even strangers can partake of events in our personal affairs, may be cause for concern for those who wish to draw lessons from the film. The one point where Altarejos makes known his partiality is in his depiction of David’s mounting instability. Unfriend makes its postqueer position clear when the tender and sentimental lovemaking between the lovers at the start becomes, in retrospect, more harmful for David’s disposition than the rough and carelessly mounted anonymous sex he has with a bar stranger later on. Altarejos wisely refuses to replicate all the specifics of the real-life incident that inspired the movie (transplanting the action to a working-class milieu in Manila instead of a provincial capital), possibly from the recognition that in the age of the internet, socially impactful events tend to occur only once before they acquire the potential for parody. He carefully inscribes the visible marks of inner turmoil on the face and body of his intrepid lead actor, Sandino Martin, who upholds the indie spirit of pursuing histrionic truth regardless of how far he may have to depart from himself.
Back to top
Return to Canon Decampment contents
Go to alphabetized filmmakers list
Jino to Mari
English Title: Gino and Marie
Alternate Title: Death by Gokkun
Additional Languages: Japanese, English
Year of Release: 2019
Director: Joselito Altarejos
Screenwriters: John Paul Bedia & Joselito Altarejos
From a story by Brillante Mendoza
Producers: Solar Entertainment, Center Stage Productions, Beyond the Box
Cast: Oliver Aquino, Angela Cortez, Ruby Ruiz, Sherry Lara, Perry Escaño, Mitsuaki Morishita, Aubrhie Carpio, Sophie Warne, Maureen Mauricio, Emmanuel De la Cruz
Unknown to each other, Gino and Marie perform casual sex work in order to support their respective families—i.e., Gino’s younger sister and Marie’s daughter respectively. Both are instructed by Eric, their mutual procurer, to board a bus for an out-of-town resort, where a film crew is ready to record their sex-work performance, this time (and for the first and last time) as a couple.
Jino to Mari is best viewed minus spoilers, but the sensational material makes that a nearly impossible condition. Joselito Altarejos, however, has been the country’s most prominent mainstream queer pioneer, his leftist orientation evolving alongside his critiques of genders and sexualities. Jino to Mari finds his fervency at the fullest passionate level, questions of sociohistorical nuances be damned. We find working-class characters who enable the two frankly attractive innocents, but the narrative refuses to condemn folks who merely recognize and appreciate when others of their kind are able to fulfill what potential they’ve been gifted with. This sets us up for an encounter that’s best left for audiences to discover, as Gino and Marie do as well. The terrible paradox at this juncture is that one may regret the turnout of events, having sympathized with the couple up to this point; but in addition, one could also be grateful for having seen, from the safe distance that film art provides, the monstrous reach of global privilege.
Back to top
Return to Canon Decampment contents
Go to alphabetized filmmakers list
Á!
ORCID ID 
Ámauteurish! 