JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

We’ve been friends with the filmmaker Jeffrey Jeturian since we interviewed him in 2000 for Today newspaper. The Movie and TV Review and Classification Board had just given his film Tuhog an X-rating (which was hilarious actually, because Tuhog is a satire on bomba movies), but that’s not the reason Jeffrey was fuming mad. He was furious because unbeknownst to him his producer Regal had chopped the movie to get a kinder rating.

There’s nothing like a common crusade to cement a friendship. The following year when Tuhog was accepted to the Venice Film Festival—making it the first Filipino movie in competition since Manuel Conde’s Genghis Khan—I tagged along as Jeffrey’s entourage. At the time Filipino movies were not getting the sort of international attention they’re getting today, much less the financial support; we paid our own expenses. Gladly, because it was Venice (and I kept going back).

Jeffrey’s latest movie Bisperas will screen at Cinemalaya on July 17. Last Sunday we spoke to Jeffrey over brunch at M Cafe (Cheese! Mimosas! Jazz trio!). We’ll let him do the talking from here.

Why haven’t you made a movie since Kubrador in 2005?

You started out as a production designer and you’re still very much involved in that aspect of your movies. Tell us about the special effect you designed for your second film, Pila Balde.

Alfred Hitchcock had a cameo in all his movies. You don’t show up in your own movies, but your 69-year-old yaya does. In various states of undress. Why?

Remember when we went to the Venice Film Festival in 2001 for your film Tuhog and no one paid us any attention because they’d never heard of Philippine cinema? Now there’s a Filipino movie in every edition of Cannes and Venice.