The sex-comedy as weapon of change
There is a lot of sex in Juana C. the full-length film debut of the political critic/YouTube phenomenon. Kinky sex, sex for pay, boy on boy, girl on girl, group and something called vroom vroom. Why is there so much sex in a movie that wears its advocacies on it XXL sleeve?
Because if we devoted 1/10th of the time we spend thinking about sex to discussing the issues that affect our country, we would have a more rational, responsible, better-educated society. An informed society is harder for corrupt politicians and opportunists to take advantage of.
And because what the politicians and businessmen do to Juana Change in the movie, they are doing to us. Our nation is being screwed by the very same people who are supposed to protect us.
In the first offering from Laganap Productions, Juana Change is a girl who comes to Manila to attend a prestigious university. Her townmates from Barangay Kaploc are counting on her to lead the fight against the corporate interests which are stealing their resources and killing their village. But the impressionable Juana falls in with the high-living crowd and winds up seriously in debt. How is she supposed to pay?
By selling her own natural resource: her body. And Mae Paner as Juana Change makes an all-out bid to become the first heavyweight sex symbol in local cinema. Socially-aware is the new sexy.
Under the tutelage of Peaches Tanquintera, the most powerful mistress, pimp, influence peddler and secret keeper in the Philippines, Juana meets the people who pull the strings: the judge whose judgement is for sale, the politicians who treat public funds as their petty cash, the military who do their bidding, and the clergy who condone corruption. And when she opens her legs, she learns to open her eyes and her mind to the urgent problems of society. She gains access to information that must be brought to the people, information that could cost her her life.
Written by Rody Vera and directed by Jade Castro, Juana C. is that rare animal in contemporary cinema: an advocacy movie in the form of a sex-comedy.
Juana C opens in theatres nationwide on May 29 June 5.
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