2022 | 1h 47m | English subtitles
Directed by: Ma-An Asuncion-Dagñalan
Written by: Ma-An Asuncion-Dagñalan, Siege Ledesma, and Carlo Obispo
Starring: Harvey Bautista, Elijah Canlas, Keoni Jin, Hour Hooshmand, Juan Karlos Labajo, Soliman Cruz, Bombi Plata, Jericho Arceo, Bon Lentejas, Ricardo Cepeda
Date: Friday, April 12, 2024 | 6:30 PM
Venue: NYU KJCC | 53 Washington Sq S, NYC 10012
Free and open to the public.
RSVP Link: https://bit.ly/panawin-s24
Synopsis
Rebel Rebel, an indie rock band composed of sheltered teens, gets its biggest break with an invitation to a prestigious music festival. But after their celebratory performance at the local bar, they are arrested for alleged meth possession. Rogue cops haul them to the Blue Room, a detention area for the well-heeled where they are terrorized and threatened with prison time before getting offered the chance to bribe their way out. The band members have to decide whether to use their privilege to get on with their lives or to standup for what they believe in.
Director’s Statement
Inequality exists as long as prejudice comes from those in power who are on top of the social pyramid. Power has pros and cons in society – some use it to influence people to become better individuals, but some abuse it to bully or be greedy against others. For Rebel Rebel, its power lies in the band’s collective talent which the members translate through music.
For the police, they (though not all) abuse their power by showing how entitled they are and by forcing others to accept their “authority” in society. For the rich people or the moneybags, money is their power. They have all the means to turn things around.
Blue Room is a character-driven piece that focuses not just on the unfortunate turn of events but also on the conflicted morality of several individuals who are victims of power plays. I would like the audience to realize how important relationships are, how to respect others, especially the less fortunate and the needy, and how to be responsible in using their own “power”.
Curator’s Notes
Several films have tackled the devastation on Philippine society unleashed by the Duterte drug war. These include Big Night!, Aswang (both featured earlier in the Panawin film series), Watch List, Ma’ Rosa, and BuyBust. These films were told from the point of view of slum dwellers and other poverty-ridden groups, the main victims of the extra-judicial killings licensed by megalomaniac authoritarianism and police corruption. Blue Room depicts the situation through a different prism, that of a band of teenagers from wealthy and privileged backgrounds.
This debut feature directed by Ma-an Asuncion-Dagñalan premiered at Cinemalaya, the Philippines’ major showcase of independent filmmaking. It became the most-watched film of the festival with millennial and gen z audiences identifying with the protagonists in a nightmarish story that is nevertheless shot through with deadpan humor (think Tarantino).
The film opens with hungry street kids interacting outside a high-end bar with some rich kids, members of the rock band Rebel Rebel, who would have nothing to do with them. Thus the film immediately frames the story within the social divide that has long plagued Philippine society, before training its focus on the lives of the band members, which include vocalist and keytarist Troy (Elijah Canlas), drummer Chigz (Harvey Bautista), guitarist Christian (Leoni Jin), and bassist Rocky (Nour Hooshmand) who is the sole female member of the band. Nevertheless, it’s Rocky who turns out to be the most mature, sensible, and steadfast of the group, however feistily she can dish it out as any of the guys.
An ex-member unexpectedly joins them at the performance, Anton (Juan Karlos Labajo) who was composer/vocalist before he left the band to roam through southeast Asia and then as far afield as Tibet in search of enlightenment. The gang members are mostly concerned about the usual teenage preoccupations, broken romances, stressed relationships with parents, the thrill of social media posts, and having a good time buoyed by music, booze, weed-laced cookies.
A missed traffic light while driving to get some midnight rice porridge gets the gang pulled over by a couple of wise-cracking cops (Bombi Plata and Jericho Arceo) who in the process produce a bag of meth supposedly found in the car.
They soon find themselves in the “blue room,” an area in a police station where well-heeled captives are psychologically terrorized before getting offered a chance to bribe their way out. The operation is led by sometimes solicitous, sometimes menacing, but always calculating chief Delgado (Soliman Cruz). Soon after, the band is broken up after an escape attempt by Anton who gets thrown along with Rocky into a narrow prison cell crammed with alleged drug users from the lower depths of the economic divide
Dagñalan first heard about the blue rooms in 2010 and it soon became the seed of the story. The narrow cell hidden behind the bookshelf is a recreation of the infamous “staging area” in a Manila police station that kept and terrorized detainees until they or their families could bribe their way out. (The discovery in 2017 of this secret cell was documented by Alyx Arumpac in the film Aswang and Patricia Evangelista in her book Some People Need Killing [pages 224-227]).
In the course of their ordeal, the band members discover their own deeper selves and the wider society outside of their privileged bubbles. Beyond the visceral experience of police corruption, they awaken to the inequality of the social justice system in the country. Their fashionably intellectual and facile woke-isms are replaced by a real apprehension of Philippine society’s endemic injustices.
In her statements and in the way she depicts the bungling humanity of the rogue cops and introduces a principled police officer late in the story, Dagñalan, evincing a nuanced sensibility, underscores that not all the police are corrupt. But however principled the cop may be, we are reminded that he still operates within the system of social injustice, one that Dagñalan hopes that art can help change.
— Gil Quito, Curator
About the Director
Born in San Fernando, Pampanga, Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan attended cinematography class in 2003, and studied Mexican filmmaking under the Mexican director Gustavo Loza in 2006 at the Mowelfund Film Institute. She trained under National Artist Ricky Lee and Armando Lao for scriptwriting. She was a Pro Online Delegate at the 74th Locarno International Film Festival for Blue Room. She was also the producer, cinematographer, and co-writer of Layang Bilanggo which won Best Screenplay and Best Picture at the 2010 Cinema One Originals Film Festival. Blue Room is her first feature film as director.
Awards for Blue Room
- Cinemalaya – Special Jury Prize; Best Director, Supporting Actor (Cruz), Cinematography, Production Design
- Eddy Awards – Best Picture, Actor (Canlas), Production Design, Editing, Musical Score
- Urian – Best Supporting Actor (Cruz)
- FAMAS Awards – Best Director
- La Femme Film International Festival (Los Angeles) – Best Foreign Film
