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 25th, 2009 at 5:32 am
^^^ There is nothing demeaning with being an OFW or being a housemaid. It’s a decent job & it puts food on the table. In times of economic crisis, you are not in a position to be maarte or mayabang.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
ren:
and who do you want to glorify, our POPULAR corrupt officials?
January 24th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Unless you can provide jobs here in the Philippines for all the filipino maids working abroad - then yes it is something to be proud of.
This is reality. It is a fact, a sad one though, that a lot of Filipinos work as domestic helpers abroad.
I suggest everyone check the link to the trailer and read all the comments made there before we get all defensive and cry foul over this movie.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:25 am
I would love to see the movie and of course, I love to see Filipina or Filipinos on international movies of course. If Chinese actors/actresses could be famous, why not Filipinos?
@ren, not sure about the “gloriffication” on the trailer, unfortunately that’s an OFW fact. My cousin works as a domestic help in Toronto and we’ve visited them there. If you happen to walk into some of the upper class neighborhood in the city, you’d know what i mean.
Maybe after we watched the whole movie, it’s then that we can decide how the OFW was portrayed or what the director thinks about the situation.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Pinay pang DH lang sa tate!