MARIFE Necesito, who landed an important role in “Mammoth,” which stars Academy and Golden Globe Award nominee, Michelle Williams, and acclaimed actor Gael Garcia Bernal, shared with us the link to the trailer of her international film (posted on the bottom of this blog). “Mammoth” is the first English-language film of Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodysson.
As we reported earlier, in “Mammoth,” Marife plays Gloria, a mother of two sons who leaves the Philippines to work as the nanny of the daughter (Sophie Nyweide) of a successful New York couple, played by Gael and Michelle. When Gael’s businessman character goes to Thailand, he realizes that he wants to change his life. This development sets off a dramatic chain of events that impact the characters of Marife, Michelle and Sophie.
Marife informed us that she filmed her scenes in New York, Sweden and the Philippines, specifically in Subic and Bataan. The trailer of the film prominently features Marife, including an emotional scene where she speaks in Tagalog to her two sons on the phone. The two sons are also shown on a beach in the Philippines, as shot by Lukas’ cinematographer, Marcel Zyskind, whose credits include Angelina Jolie’s “A Mighty Heart.”
Marife shared that she had to dub a few of her lines in a dubbing studio in Makati. She also told us via e-mail that in anticipation of the film’s release early next year, she is doing phone interviews with the Swedish press, as arranged by Memfis Film, one of the production companies involved in the making of “Mammoth.”
The Filipina actress added that Lukas is still making final editing work on “Mammoth.” Lukas is the highly praised filmmaker of films like “Lilja 4-ever,” “Show Me Love” and “Together.” Lukas, who made the final decision to pick Marife for the part, was hailed by his esteemed compatriot, the late Ingmar Bergman, as a “young master.”
Marife said she enjoyed working with Michelle, whose credits include Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and Gael, the Mexican thespian who’s enjoying a sterling international career with such films as “Babel,” “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Amores Perros.”
Here’s the link to the trailer.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
A nanny is different from a housemaid.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
its not about “being a housemaid”, but being a good actress…being in a movie of international release….of being choosen to act opposite the best and the popular in holywood….
December 16th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Ren,
But it’s the truth! It’s a very decent job. Check Singapore and Hongkong on a good Sunday - very hard to miss.
Maybe you should tell all the macho men in the Philippines to man up and take care of their women.
So you won’t have to be ashamed of our sister workign as maids
December 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
With due respects, landing a film role - more especially, a lead role, like the subject of the write-up, requires quite high caliber of talent. The role is merely incidental. It’s the talent. The role just happens to be that of a housemaid. How the actor or actress delivers the performance required by the script is what counts. I have yet to see the movie but I trust, the role would not have been entrusted to that Pinay if the film mgt saw no good reason for her to give justice to the level of performance expected of her.
December 14th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Great! Another Filipina Maid Story. Can she cook a mean Garlic Fried Rice in the movie?