RAQUEL VILLAVICENCIO is an award-winning scriptwriter who also acts. She now has two entries in the Cinemalaya Filmfest. She’s the martyr wife of Tirso Cruz III in “Bisperas” and a rich balikbayan in “Nino”, the feature film debut of theatre director Loy Arcenas. “It’s hard to play a martyr role kasi di ako ganun in real life,” she says. “Direk Jeff Jeturian kept reminding me to drop the palaban attitude and be very submissive. I want peace for our family but I’m just about to explode as I suspect my domineering husband mortgaged our house and lot at pinatalo sa sugal. It happens on Christmas eve so pilit na pilit ang celebration namin ng Pasko sa dami ng family problems. In ‘Nino’, anak ako from the U.S. ni Tony Mabesa. He’s in coma at galit sa’kin ang sister niya, Fides Asencio, as I want to sell our old house in Pandacan. ‘Nino’ ang title kasi they dress up a boy to look like a Sto. Nino to perform a miracle on my dying father.”
“Bisperas (Intruders)” is Jeturian’s first film after the acclaimed “Kubrador”. He’s also known for “Sana Pag-ibig Na”, “Tuhog”, “Pila Balde”, and “Bridal Shower”. “It took a long time for me to find a material that I really like,” he says. “’Bisperas’ is a drama on a middle class family which is different as most indie films deal with poor families. Jennifer Sevilla, Julia Clarete and Edgar Allan Guzman are their children. On Christmas eve, they go home after midnight mass to discover their home was robbed, triggering a series of incidents where their grudges with each other surface. It shows the hypocrisy of so called Christians kasi after showing cruelty to each other, they all return to church the next day and receive Holy Communion from the lay minister father as if nothing happened.”
