Janella Salvador was a no-show at the recent press launch of QCinema 2025 in which her Open Endings with rumored girlfriend Klea Pineda is among the major films in the festival’s line-up. Only Pineda, Jasmine Curtis-Smith and Lea Tamomong turned up at the festival’s media launch at Max’s main restaurant at Scout Tuazon St. in Quezon City. 

Has the rumored romance fizzled out?

Apparently, no. The rumored romance still sizzles and Salvador’s absence at the QCinema event is just due to her being busy promoting her latest ABS-CBN series What Lies Beneath, which she top-bills with Sue Ramirez, Kaila Estrada and Charlie Dizon. The series premiered  just last Monday (20 October), on free TV.

At the QCinema media launch, Pineda firmly re-uttered her and Salvador’s “battle line” about their rumored romance: “What you see is what you get!” 

Pineda, 26, after the question-and-answer segment of the QCinema media launch, was practically grilled by the journos and the vloggers about the recent sighting of her and Salvador at a tattoo shop. They wanted to know which part of their respective bodies was the tattoo inked, and if the rumored couple had the same tattoos or different from each other. 

“I don’t wat to show our tatoos nor I want to reveal hers,” she asserted in Filipino. 

She stressed when asked to categorically describe their closeness to each other as an outright romance: 

“What you see on social media, that’s it. We don’t owe it to everyone to say the real score.” 

Salvador, 27, is a single mother of a son with ex-partner actor Markus Paterson, who seems to have gone back to Somerset, England, where his family has long been in residence. 

Curtis-Smith, 31, in a separate sidelines interview on the same occasion, took time to tell the journos and vloggers about her appearing in 3 Upuan, a three-character avant-garde play re-staged at the Atene de Manila University Art Gallery in Katipunan Avenue, QC. 

The non-linear play is written and directed by Ateneo’s enfant terrible of theater, Guelan Luarca. Its remaining playdates are 24, 25 and 26 of this month. Showtimes are at 7 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, with matinee performances at 2 p.m. on both Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are at P1,600 per head. 

Reviewing the play for the website Theater Fans Manila, Emil Hofilena wrote: “With a stunning new cast and a striking new venue, the latest version of Guelan Varela-Luarca’s nonlinear play explores loss with an urgent, visceral pulse.

“... Where the original cast of Martha Comia, Jojit Lorenzo and JC Santos emphasized the differences that keep the characters apart in their grieving, (Cris) Pasturan, Jasmine Curtis-Smith and Paolo O’Hara create a portrait of how familiar and warm the siblings still feel in each other’s company — which is precisely what they’re afraid of ruining if they speak openly about their grief.

“... Where the individual experience of grief was most prominent in February’s run of 3 Upuan, now the emphasis seems to be placed on how grief structures our relationships. It unites the three siblings in a common experience but disrupts their respective lives that they’ve built with other people. Most painfully, grief calls into question how much we actually know about those we believe we’re close to. As Jai (Curtis-Smith) says, we stop telling each other our shames as we get older, in hopes of protecting the bonds formed in childhood.”

Meanwhile, the 13th QCinema International Film Festival will run on 14 to 23 November, with the theme “Film City.”

Screenings will be held in Quezon City cinemas, including Gateway, Ayala Malls Trinoma, Ayala Malls Cloverleaf, Fisher Mall and Robinsons Galleria. 

QCinema 2025 will kick off with the film Couture by Alice Winocour. Starring Angelina Jolie, it follows an American filmmaker arriving in Paris for Fashion Week.