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.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
let’s watch it first before we put our judgement on it. And so what if the Filipina plays a housemaid role? It is a movie and any actor on it was just given roles to play.
Let’s not start up from connotating a maid with less or totally nothing to be proud of.
Nakakapuwing ang maliliit
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:35 am
the film is not about the filipina maid. her character happens to play a pivotal role in the film.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
What we are going to see is the plight of a Filipina becoming an international actress.That’s something to be proud of.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:03 am
Also, I appreciate the fact that the Filipino characters were made to speak in their language. Hail Filipino! Both the language and the person!
December 31st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Let us not be hypocrites. We know that we have a lot of of our fellow Filipinos who work abroad as DHs. We should be proud that for a key role in the film the production chose to cast a Filipina maid. I think this is because the Filipina maid’s experience (and the OFW’s in general) fit the storyline of the movie which according to the website is reminiscent of Babel but a tidier version of it). I commend Ms. Necesito for bagging the role and giving justice to the job which a lot of Filipinos do not appreciate and seem to be ashamed of.