Mother-daughter filmmakers make waves

There’s a new mother-and-daughter creative team in Philippine movies, coming after Vivamax’s Len Carillo (mother, film producer) and Quinn Carillo (daughter, actor-scriptwriter). The new team is that of Catherine Camarillo (mother, producer-director) and Ellis Catrina (daughter, creative producer-scriptwriter).

The new team has nothing to do with Vivamax, but with an indie company known as Pocketmedia Productions. Their first output is the romantic film Chances Are You and I, headlined by what might become a mainstay screen loveteam between Kira Balinger and Kelvin Miranda. 

The film will start showing in theaters on 29 May with Regal Films as distributor. The movie is co-produced by Happy Infinite Productions.

Yes, Balinger is with ABS-CBN, while Miranda with GMA 7. Their team-up may be considered a casting coup even as they are not yet big stars like Kathryn Bernardo and Alden Richards when they were cast in ABS-CBN Star Cinema’s Hello Love Goodbye — a film that became Pinoy cinema’s highest box office grosser until Rewind, bannered by the real-life couple Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes came along late last year to break the record. (Oh, yes, Star Cinema produced Rewind, too, just like Hello Love Goodbye).

It’s probably sheer coincidence that the surnames “Carillo” and “Camarillo” sound almost exactly alike. But we can’t consider it sheer coincidence that the latter worked on a string of series and films for ABS-CBN as assistant director beginning 2009 all the way to 2021. 

Camarillo has been assistant director in such ABS-CBN series as Mara Clara (2009), May Bukas Pa (2010) and Wild Flower.

She started getting billed as full director on ABS-CBN in the entire series Hiyas in 2019, some episodes of Maalaala Mo Kaya in 2020, and in the youth seriesIin 2022.

Camarillo has also worked in the movies of Chito Roño and in Tanging Yaman, directed by Laurice Guillen, all for Star Cinema. 

She started producing and directing Chances Are You and I in 2020, but had to stop when the pandemic broke out full blast. She managed to resume filming in 2022 during which she shot major parts of the film in South Korea during the cold month of November.

At the press conference held at the Regal Events Venue in Quezon City, Camarillo’s daughter Ellis Catrina revealed that she started writing the script of Chances Are You and I when she was still in senior high school and completed it when she was already in college. She later showed the script to her mom who decided to produce and direct it.

The story is about two young persons (portrayed by Balinger and) with terminal cancer who refuse to withdraw from life. Their optimism gives them enough reasons to fall in love with each other, enough body strength to travel to South Korea, and enjoy the scenery there. 

The mother and daughter are both determined not to come up with a morbid film and they even managed to convince SB19 to allow them to play the band’s MAPA as one of the film’s soundtracks, as well as JK Labajo’s “Demonyo” and Brando Bal’s “Anghel.” Balinger and Miranda sing one of those songs during their promo appearances. They have also recorded it as a music video now being played in digital platforms. 

The music video was shown at the media huddle and the two lead actors have very good chemistry onscreen as both have very light skin tone and look naturally sensual when they look at each other. Their eyes say it all. Miranda has gained weight, developed muscular shoulders and seem to be at his best in their music video. 

The Camarillos have actually finished a second film whose details they don’t want to announce yet so as not to distract potential viewers of Chances Are You and I. It will star a more established onscreen love team (meaning, the couple are not lovers at all off-screen as they have their own paramours in real life, which also seems to be true at the moment for Balinger and Miranda).

For both actors, it’s their first lead roles in a non-triangle romantic movie. Chances Are You and I will be shown on 25 to 26 May at the Jinseo Arigato Film Festival in Japan. The producer-director, along with Balinger and Miranda, will appear at the festival. 

The movie will also have a gala premiere at one or two SM Megamall cinemas on 28 May.

The Camarillo producer-director seems to be very even-tempered, if not cool. She looks young and unstressed despite her film and TV involvements since 2009. Happily, the daughter seems to have inherited her mother’s disposition. Despite having finished college in 2017, she looks like a high school student. Her voice is youthful, too.

Meanwhile, we have yet to hear about the details of the latest Vivamax project of the mother-daughter team of the Carrillos after the recently launched Dayo. Whatever comes after Dayo might be the last bold, breast-exposing role of Quinn since her mom might launch her as a full-fledged director to stop her from disrobing on-camera.

Quinn was actually also the assistant director of Dayo. We hope the Carillos will soon begin doing wholesome films, too, in which sizzling sex, hetero or homosexual, is not the main attraction.

Having more dynamic mother-daughter artistic tandems is definitely good news about honest-to-goodness women empowerment.