The local showbiz industry still favors mestiza types of female actors.
Yet once in a while, abrown-complexioned Pinay like Jhassy Busran is fortunate enough to be cast in a romantic comedy movie, whose indie producers plan to enter it in the 2022 Metro Manila Film Festival.
The movie, Home I Found in You, currently on post-production stage, stars Jhassy, 16, with two upstarts John Heidrick Sitjar and Harvey Almoneda.
It is produced by a new company, REMS Film.
The movie marks Jhassy's first lead role in a full-length film, though she has appeared in a short film, Pugon, for which she won best actress at the Manhattan International Film Festival in 2021.
In Pugon, she portrays a minor whose parents "pawn" her to a bakery owner to pay for their debt. The always impressive actor Soliman Cruz plays the ruthless bakery owner.
Pugon director Gabby Ramos said his family had in their employ a domestic helper pawned by her own parents. When her parents died, other elders of the clan pawned her again to Ramos' family.
Remarkably, Jhassy then 15, who in real life comes from a well-off family, won an international award for essaying a character who's hard up.
Just last 3 September, Jhassy's parents threw a grand party at Plaza Ibarra restaurant in Quezon City to celebrate her 16th birthday.
The party was made to look like her debut, with a "dance of 16 sunflowers" (actually roses).
Jhassy herself thought of another feature similar to the dance of roses: a lantern offering ritual. Sixteen people Jhassy personally picked offered her a lit lantern while she sat on a peacock chair on a dais.
They spoke about how Jhassy has been serving like a lit lamp to them and to other people.
A video showed Jhassy leading the family in diasater relief operations.
Jhassy's father is a canteen concessionaire in several buildings in Metro Manila (the family is based in Marilao, Bulacan). Her mom is into manpower recruitment for overseas employment. They are proud of their daughter's concern for others and her persistence in acting.
After Pugon, Jhassy appeared in a supporting role in Caught in the Act, directed by Perry Escaño who had wanted it entered in the 2021 MMFF. It did not make it, so the producers screened it in theaters right before the MMFF.
This year, she was in sci-fi/action series, Genius Teens, which streamed on www.ktext.ph. It. was directed by the award-winning Paolo Bertola.
Will Jhassy in Home I Found in You finally make it to the MMFF?