With Sisa set for its Philippine release, the filmmaker reflects on what pulled him toward an overlooked chapter of history, how Hilda Koronel became part of the picture and why access matters as much as ambition when it comes to keeping local cinema alive.

In Philippine cinema, it&rsquo;s rare to move between mainstream hits and festival mainstays without getting pinned to a single identity. Jun Robles Lana has managed to do it through sheer output and range, backed by a Palanca-decorated writing career and a body of work that&rsquo;s traveled well.
His projects may shift in tone and scale, but they&rsquo;re often anchored by sharp character work and a clear point of view. <a href="https://www.lofficielph.com/culture/sisa-movie-details-plot-cast-watch-hilda-koronel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">With Sisa set for its Philippine release</a>, L&rsquo;Officiel Hommes Philippines sits down with Lana to talk about returning to history, working with icons and the realities shaping how Filipino films find their audience today.

I want to start by congratulating you on Call Me Mother. It really connected with people. Coming off that kind of run, what&rsquo;s your headspace like as a filmmaker, especially knowing your next release in the Philippines is Sisa?
People have been telling me I am lucky to have one foot in mainstream films and one foot in arthouse, but to me, films are films, stories are stories and the audience deserves the best you can give. Both films were challenging and rewarding to make. I filmed Sisa before Call Me Mother, and because Sisa had its world premiere in Tallinn, it still played in front of an audience before Call Me Mother. But of course, it&rsquo;s always exciting to do a wide release of a Filipino film here in the Philippines. I can&rsquo;t wait for Filipino audiences to see Sisa. There&rsquo;s a lot we want to say in this film, but ultimately, it&rsquo;s the audience that decides what the film is to them.
You&rsquo;ll do something crowd-pleasing like And the Breadwinner Is... or The Panti Sisters, then pivot to Sisa, a historical thriller set during the Philippine-American War. Is that you trying to avoid being boxed in, or is it just how your brain works?
It depends on what inspires me at any given time. Sometimes, the themes of the films come from current social issues being discussed online or in the news. Sometimes, the premise of the story hits me first and it develops from there. In the case of&nbsp;Sisa, I&rsquo;ve always been interested in the American occupation of the Philippines because it was a period in our history that is often overlooked. There are many stories about our struggles during the Spanish colonization or during the Japanese occupation in the Second World War, but very few during the time Americans kept Filipinos in concentration camps and hunted down Filipino nationalists, just as they were developing Manila as the &lsquo;Washington, D.C. of the Tropics&rsquo;. There are diverse stories that can be told from this whole era. I have already developed at least three, and Sisa is the first of them.

When did Sisa start for you? Was it an idea you had been sitting on or did it come from a specific moment?
I&rsquo;ve had bits and pieces of the story simmering in my head, but it all fell into place when I heard from my producer that Hilda Koronel is open to hearing pitches for a film. I&rsquo;ve always been a fan and I immediately thought of what she can do and what would be an interesting role to showcase that. And that&rsquo;s where everything came together. When I thought of her as this mysterious woman who has been through so much but doesn&rsquo;t speak of it, as this woman that most people will tend to underestimate but is capable of the unthinkable, that&rsquo;s where all the story elements began to fit together.
Hilda Koronel coming back after a long hiatus is a headline on its own. How did that casting happen in real life? Who called whom first?
In 2023, we met Hilda Koronel at the launch of the Manila International Film Festival in LA. We were quite starstruck because for a decade, she has been an enigma, a legendary actress whose name comes up in casting discussions, but no one really knew how to get in touch with her or if she would be interested to go back at all. Nothing much came out of that brief introduction, but months later, my producer, Perci Intalan, found out from Shirley Kuan that she was open to hearing pitches. And if she likes the project, she might just be open to acting again.
We prepared our pitch and presented it to her in a video call. She was quite relaxed during the pitch; she was even joking and telling stories. Fortunately, she liked the story and the character. She even said she could already imagine the scenes. But she still wanted to read the script first. So, it was then that I began writing the screenplay. And a month or so later, we handed it to her. She read it and immediately said yes.

"The soul of storytelling comes from the communication between the storyteller and the listener."

You wrote, directed and co-produced Sisa. What&rsquo;s the upside of having that much control, and what&rsquo;s the downside?
Even though people think it would be easy because you have a lot of control, it is quite tricky to switch from one role to the other. The three roles &mdash; writer, director and producer &mdash; are positions that are oftentimes meant to clash. The writer is protective about his or her screenplay, the world that was imagined and the characters that were created. The director has a vision, but it is a vision that is bound by technical and logistical realities that sometimes compromise the imagined world and even the characters in the screenplay. So, even there, the writer in me has to come to terms with the director in me. And then there&rsquo;s the producer, bound by budget and schedules, and considerations from partners. This third role is yet another round of negotiations in my own head. In many ways, it can sometimes be easier to debate with other people in these roles; at least you can verbalize the argument compared to letting it all happen inside you. So, if anyone else is thinking of taking on all these roles, be very careful. It does add whole new levels of stress.
You recently spoke out about rising ticket prices and said the industry has &ldquo;lost its soul&rdquo;. But do you think Filipino audiences still want to show up for local films?
It is unthinkable for me that Filipinos will not want to see stories told from a Filipino perspective and with characters created from our cultural and societal sensibilities. Why would you not want to watch a film that you can relate to? The problem is access. There are many hurdles and gates that prevent a majority of our population from watching our films. I understand the economic realities, but what I want to point out is that it is a problem &mdash; one that we need to solve. Our filmmakers also need the audience, not just because of financial considerations or even ego. We need the constant interaction with our audience for our art to evolve with them. Our stories need to be heard and we need to hear the feedback to craft the next ones. The soul of storytelling comes from that communication between the storyteller and the listener.

What&rsquo;s one change you&rsquo;d want to see happen soon that would actually help filmmakers and audiences at the same time?
We need the government and the private sector to work together to open the gates and help our filmmakers and our audience connect with each other more freely.
You have 11 Palanca Awards, you&rsquo;ve done TV, indie, MMFF and international festivals. At this point, what still excites you enough to start from zero again?
There is always a new story to tell and a new way of telling a story. I am grateful because the accolades and the international exposure are validations that I am on the right track. But believe me, I have had my share of discouragement too &mdash; from the early days of my craft, even up to now. But ultimately, my passion is creating characters and worlds and stories.
With Ang Magtutuli coming next, what do you feel you&rsquo;re trying to do differently as a storyteller this time?
Ang Magtutuli is still in development. It was selected for the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum, but we are still in the early days of its creative journey. Anything can happen as it evolves, and that&rsquo;s what I find exciting about the process.

An Exclusive Interview With Jun Robles Lana on ‘Sisa’

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