Caparas brood working on Chiong sisters film

CEBU, Philippines — Having famous parents can be tough, but for Peach and CJ Caparas, the shadow and influence of their mom and dad is but a benchmark for their potential.

Being children of veteran director Carlo J. Caparas and the late Cebuana actress/film producer Donna Villa (Marian Patalinjug in real life of Lapu-Lapu City’s Patalinjug clan), it doesn’t come as a surprise when these chips off the old block take to filmmaking and acting.

CJ, a 28-year-old economics graduate, is an actor and creative consultant. His younger sister, political science graduate Ysabelle Peach, is a budding film director at 25, and is also an actress who already has a Best Supporting Actress FAMAS award for her role in the 2015 “Angela Markado” film which she co-directed with her dad.

In their latest endeavor, the Caparas kids team up to tell the controversial real-life rape and double murder case of the Chiong sisters set in 1997 Cebu, with their father, comic strip creator, writer and director Carlo right on their heels.

The film, based on the events surrounding the crime of the alleged kidnapping, rape, and murder of Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong is Cebu-based, and has already held auditions in Cebu. Directed by Peach, the film will debut her full directional prowess, with her dad as her right-hand man this time.

Growing up in film sets, Peach and CJ are no stranger to the industry. They saw how their father wrote and directed, saw how their mother (who passed away in 2017 due to cancer) took the wheel when it came to business.

“When people say that I got in the industry because of my parents, I don’t mind,” Peach begins during an afternoon interview at Costabella Tropical Beach Hotel in Lapu-Lapu City.

“I was just fortunate to have my mom and dad there, and to actually fit in the industry. That’s why I don’t get tired. I don’t get sleepy on the job because that’s how they raised us. When we were kids, we were right there shooting at wee hours. Ever since, pagod was my bread and butter. I was so used to it and had that with me until I became his [father] assistant director, and eventually co-director.”

At a young age, Peach already showed a penchant for storytelling. Her father shares how her bed would be filled with drawings. Her mom would warn her not to follow daddy’s footsteps unless she wanted to starve. A five-year-old Peach retorted that her mom had no way of telling the future, much to her parents’ amusement. That was a story they all love to tell.

Despite the passion for arts, CJ and Peach didn’t end up going to art or filmmaking school. Their dad discouraged it. Instead, they lived the filmmaking life while majoring in things far away from the craft.

“He wouldn’t let me go to film school. But I see that now,” says Peach. “Sometimes, people who went to film school think that they’re better than the ones who actually work in the industry. They tend to have the same kind of style. There’s not much variety. We don’t judge by credibility through the school you went to, they [film industry] really want to see kung masipag ka, and if you’re open to learning things.”

Working with their dad is something very normal for the siblings. In their father’s latest advocacy film, “Kamandag Ng Droga,” CJ portrayed the lead role, while Peach co-directed the movie with her father. That’s how they know the things they know now – by watching him and eventually working with him.

But at home, the tough Carlo J. Caparas is a lenient father. He loves seeing his children learn things for themselves, and is not one to restrict failure. When he’s behind the camera, Peach quips that their dad transforms into someone who has full control.

“He’s super different when he’s a director. As a dad he likes to see us free, and making and learning from our mistakes but nung naging assistant director na ako, I had to follow every single thing that he said. You weren’t allowed to make mistakes,” Peach shares.

Seeing their father write all of the iconic personas like Panday, Bakekang, Joaquin Bordado and Gagamboy, among many others, and to bring all of these characters and stories to life their whole lives, naturally influenced CJ and Peach. Most importantly, they witnessed first-hand how the Carlo-Donna tandem, collectively known as “The Golden Couple,” revolutionized the film industry.

They want to be just like them: visionaries who remained true to themselves.

Definitely, they recognize their own strengths too. Direk Carlo admits that CJ and Peach are better at motivating their actors and have their own way of executing their vision.

They saw their parents work on crime and mystery films. Back in the days, the Carlo-Donna team brought about the controversial, provocative and shocking.

“It’s my favorite genre: crime and massacres. I used to watch documentaries about serial killers and murders,” shares Peach. “I grew to be super fascinated with it, and when I found out that that was what they [parents] did as a team, that they introduced something provocative and that the Philippines accepted it, I thought that’s pretty damn good! It’s intriguing, it’s not like the love stories or the comedies, which we already have in our life anyway. It’s captivating.”

These kinds of stories were the ones she and CJ grew up watching apart from James Bond and Indiana Jones. Direk Carlo even shares a story of CJ as a kid, them coming out of a theater after watching a children’s flick and asking his dad: “Bakit walang saksakan?”

Other than the genre per se, CJ and Peach hope to turn the industry around the same way their parents did, or to at least add another dimension.

To start that, in true Caparas fashion, is the Chiong sisters film.

“The projects that they do, the things they devoted themselves to, gusto nila [parents] makabuluhan. No nonsense. They want something that has depth,” CJ chimes in.

“Ngayon, when there’s a trend—yun na yun. We want to start a revolution kumbaga. We’re trying to prevent the industry from being stagnant. And it’s not just us, we don’t want to take the credit. We want to set the pace. Sana may ibang filmmaker na makakita and think that maybe it’s time to start a revolution and to veer away from what’s usually showing. We don’t want the industry to be monotonous because that’s ultimately how industries die. Lumiliit sila. We want to show that the Philippine film industry is evolving in terms of genre, content and cinematography. We want to prove na hindi lang ito [rom-coms, and slapstick comedy] ang kaya ng Pinoy,” CJ explains.

Indeed, it has been a while since a story as gritty and shocking and real as the Chiong sisters case was seen in the big screen. Peach explains how, in a survey, they found out that people with purchasing power and those who watch films at the cinema are girls between 13-25 years old and that they watch love stories and romantic comedies.

She explained how the industry is taking advantage of that information and showing one rom-com after another to cater to that specific market, because it sells. However, Peach muses that if there had been a variety of genres that catered to a variety of markets, then it could mean a much more thriving industry.

When asked if the genre of the upcoming Chiong sisters film would be enough to convince viewers to give the project a shot, Peach understands that it’s a gamble.

“People might not watch it. But it’s our job to keep trying to reintroduce different types of genres, and not just one kind of movie with different actors, and sometimes the same actors. We owe it to the craft and the art to risk names, to risk money, to get into it and present a variety to the Philippine movie-going public and convince them to, ‘Guys! Get off your asses and go out there.’ Watch movies in actual movie theatres. Don’t just watch your favorite love teams! Watch something that opens your mind and makes you think. Watch something that will make you an ultimately better person by making you a thinker,” Peach says.

With the nature of a crime story, the Caparases understand that controversy will always come with it. They’re no strangers to controversy, and they’ve learned to deal with it. They learned from their mother that nothing is ever personal in business, and knew how to set their priorities straight from their father. They know that having a voice meant having critics, and they are prepared to face all that.

“There are things I’ll veer away from in the film, like the case, and the legalities itself,” explains Peach. “It’s the art that we’re really trying to get into and controversy will inevitably go with that and that’s okay. Everything has controversy, even shallow things have controversy. You can’t please everyone, someone will always want to be heard. They will always say something and I found that haters are more public and vocal than lovers. People who love something don’t necessarily talk as much as haters do. And no one talks about you when you’re nobody. When someone talks about you, it means you’re doing something.”

She adds that although the project is going to be based on a real rape-murder, with interviews and the permission of Mrs. Thelma Chiong, the mother of the victims, it is still very important for any project, regardless of nature and genre to give the directors creative and cinematic liberty.

“Like what dad says to his subjects: As a director, you have to trust in me, that I translate whatever emotion I see from you, what you’re trying to make me feel as you’re telling me the story. My job is to make the audience feel it in my own way. And it takes cinematic freedom for me to make a lot of people feel the same thing at once,” she quips.

With a father who came from the masses, and a mother who hailed outside of the capital, the Caparases exhibit no trace of superiority, and even shared how good some Cebuano talents are. They’ve witnessed it themselves from their recent auditions.

It was Direk Carlo himself who encouraged them to create a springboard in Cebu, being half-Cebuanos themselves. As someone who grew up in both the fabulous and gritty world of the big screen, CJ and Peach know not to judge people by where they come from, and are able to tell the real actors from the artistas—as Peach puts it.

According to her, real actors care and respect the craft, and take projects to act, and to work with men and women who are respectable in their craft regardless of what they get out of it; while artistas care about their image and their endorsements first, and are in it for the fame and fortune.

As generations of filmmakers come together, the Caparas brood also stress the importance of finding the right mix of tradition and innovation. Their father, who still writes scripts with pen and paper, heeds his children’s voices, and his children in turn, respect the wisdom from the people who came before them.

“I know new people na akala nila they’re trailblazers cause they’re trashing on the old school. But the thing is, they’re old school because they’re tradition and they work. Your way can work for like five minutes, and then it won’t. There should be a foundation, and it’s so rare to find someone who is so willing to be right in the middle of all that—to create a base of tradition, and let the new breed grow it out,” Peach says of her dad.