Chito S. Roño and Christian Bables team up for a film set on Biri Island

The highly-anticipated film Signal Rock brings together a well-respected director, a budding actor and a highly relatable story.

Directed by versatile filmmaker Chito S. Roño and starring award-winning actor Christian Bables, Signal Rock is a tale that hits close to home.

CHRISTIAN Bables was hand-picked to play Intoy, whose sister works abroad. It tells the story of a typical Filipino family aspiring for a better life. It’s about a family, albeit poor, which lives in the beautiful island of Biri in Samar. Just like many Filipino families, one member makes the ultimate sacrifice of leaving her loved ones behind to work in a foreign land in the hope of earning money and sending it back home.

Signal Rock revolves around Intoy (Christian Bables), who lives in an impoverished fishing island, taking care of his parents, while waiting for his sister Vicky, an overseas Filipino worker, send them money. Just like many women in the island, Vicky has flown to a foreign land, and married a foreigner, as a practical way to help their families back in the Philippines. Since Intoy lives in a remote area, getting in touch with Vicky through a mobile phone is a constant struggle. The only way to get through a call to Vicky is to get a good signal by scrambling on the strange rock formations on the island.

THE movie is about real people, those who are left behind by family members who work abroad. But the better life they hope for goes down the drain when Vicky, together with her daughter, flees her husband, who turns out to be abusive. This forces Intoy, poor but with a gift of gab, to be resourceful and come up with a master plan to help his sister and his niece from their adversity.

Intoy steps to become the hope of the family to get them safely. Intoy and the rest of the characters are all based on real people and the story is inspired by true events that took place in the 1990s.

This is the second time that Roño has shot a film in Biri, Northern Samar. Known to be a maverick filmmaker, Roño is tasked to breathe life to this story with his signature brand of directing. For him, Signal Rock is a simple but realistic drama. The film is also produced by his production with his director of photography Neil Daza and written by the award-winning Rody Vera.

More than three decades in the industry, the candid director has produced some of the most notable movies genres: Bata, Bata… Paano ka Ginawa? (1998), Feng Shui (2004 and 2014), Sukob (2006), Caregiver (2008), The Healing (2012), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017), to name a few.

This year, he offers his passion film project to moviegoers.

The real story of Signal Rock is about ordinary people in a remote province, where most residents go abroad to support families. We have many stories about OFW but this one is a story, about those left behind in the province called bagtik,” explains Roño.

Bables has been acting and given bit roles since 2011, but was given his biggest break in the sleeper hit Die Beautiful, an entry at the Metro Manila Film Festival. In the movie he gave justice to Barbs Cordero, bestfriend to Paolo Ballesteros’s Trisha Echevarria. Bables was so convincing as a crossdresser in the movie that Best Supporting Actor trophies were awarded to him by the Film Academy of the Philippines, the Metro Manila Film Festival and Gawad Urian.

For Signal Rock, Bables was hand-picked personally by the master director.

‘‘I didn’t give them the whole script, but I have them read their lines when we are about to shoot the scene,” says Roño.

Bables shared that he did his best for this film since his dream is to work with the veteran director. I wanted to give my all in this passion project of Direk Chito. ‘‘I did some things here for the first time that I am proud of. I hope they watch it. The setting is beautiful and you’ll really appreciate the Philippines.”

The cast and crew stayed in Samar for 15 days.

‘‘To be more realistic, we really stayed in Samar. Until now, it is still remote. We lived with the people there with no special treatment. They got used to walking to the shooting location. We mingled with the people and they became familiar with us. Here, we got to know real people, real life. It really became our home and there was no signal,’’ shared Roño.

Signal Rock is also an entry at the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino Film Festival 2018 and will be shown 15 to 21 August in cinemas nationwide.

The film also stars Elora Españo, Mara Lopez, Francis Magundayao and seasoned actors Daria Ramirez, Arnold Reyes, Nandiing Josef, Archie Adamos, Sue Prado, JayR Versales, Keana Reeves, Julia Chua, Kokoy De Santos, Jomari Angeles, Rubu Ruiz, Mon Confiado, Ces Quesada, Lee O’Brian and Dido Dela Paz.

Signal Rock is brought by CSR Production and distributed by Regal Entertainment, Inc. Like the Facebook page (Signal Rock Movie).