MIKE SANDEJAS DIRECTS A GEM OF AN IDEA ON FILM

Amidst this COVID-19 pandemic, noted film director and script writer Mike Sandejas has produced an innovative way of doing film with the challenges that are obtaining with this virulent pandemic that has laid desolate an economic landscape that includes the film industry.

This year, 2020, was supposed to be a banner year for him with a clutch of projects that got hit by the virus and with it a cascade of lost possibilities .

“It was depressing to see things become impossible to push through,” he told The Financial District, adding, “it was depressing to see so much work suddenly disappear.” He despaired over it but with the quarantine, produced a brilliant gem of an idea.

But we are getting ahead of this compelling narrative that clearly shows how great artists come up with brilliant ideas in crisis situations like the quarantine that has bedeviled the majority of industries and led to an uptick in the unemployment situation.

Twenty three years since entering the film industry and being with his idol Mike de Leon, whose films he devoured from the Betamax tapes that his aunt Chiqui Escareal–Go brought home as a DLSU Comm Arts student, Sandejas was living his “childhood dreams.”

“I am living my childhood dream of making movies, “ he said, having a detour from reading voluminous law tomes to concentrate on what he had hankered for after watching those Betamax tapes lapping on all Mike de Leon movies.

His first feature film, Tulad ng Dati, brought to the fore what he termed as an alternate reality, a new film genre, that tiptoes between truth and fiction but which delivers a powerful message for the moviegoers .

To see Tulad ng Dati’s cemetery scene is to experience a gentle tug at your heart, a surprised ripple in the tummy, and a different view of the oncoming dawn. That scene gives a glimpse of the cinematic genius of Sandejas : the toast, the pouring of the amber pale, the pitter-patter of the rain. It was almost surreal.

The film, which dwelt on the rock band The Dawn, the first feature film of Sandejas, won Cinemalaya’s Best Film in 2006. Three years later, his second film, Dinig Sana Kita made it to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Sandejas has since made waves in the advertising industry and created topnotch documentaries for corporate and government clients and in 2017 did the Philippines Next Top Model for TV5.

He also served as president of the Directors Guild of the Philippines from 2015 to 2018 and at present  he is the Creative Director of Ubuntu Premium Studios.

In between his various stints in the film industry, Sandejas found time to teach film and mass communications in College of St. Benilde and St. Scholastica’s College. This is the hallmark of success: share your talent and provide for continuity.

That experience of nurturing young talents, of sharing his expertise is what could have led to this innovative take at filmmaking with the awesome challenge that the COVID-19 pandemic has foisted on the film industry.

It is said that in a crisis situation, the artist is so engaged in the moment that he comes up with a brilliant idea – a way out of the problem and a new roadmap to the future. This is what Sandejas had done in the middle of the quarantine.

After an initial foray doing a lecture on film via the Zoom app with a few of his friends , he has since fine-tuned his engagements and lo and behold, he now has the Sandejas Film Lecture Room on Facebook where students, returning OFWs, seafarers, housewives, film enthusiasts can look forward to a future pregnant with possibilities.

Sandejas now has developed 10 modules and has written scripts , done with  furious ingenuity in the midst of the lockdown, and his excellent lectures had already been noticed by schools and corporate boardrooms.

After all, selling a product or a service or moving an advocacy need a storytelling so compelling and intense as to move the viewer to act the way you wanted. That is what a full Sandejas lecture can do.

The fusion of this viewpoint on teaching and the COVID-19’s huge challenge is what prompted Sandejas to come up with scripts taking into account the logistical challenge of producing a film with the health protocol that the pandemic infused into the industry.

Sandejas has stamped a class rendition of film lectures and it is possible that in the near future, with the COVID-19 still playing out, he can have a “Cinemandejas” with prizes and all.

The possibilities are immense and in the unfolding drama of Sandejas’ career, we can say that he will have to accede to the audience’s clamor for a standing ovation at the curtain call, not just once, but twice.

Bravo!