CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Filmmakers, from left, Gene Cajayon, John Manal Castro and Patricio Ginelsa Jr. visited Consolidated's Ward Theatres last week to lay the groundwork for the debut of their movie, "The Debut," on Friday. The success of the low-budget film about a Filipino-American family depends on the moviemakers taking a hands-on approach to promoting their project.
UNABLE to count on the type of glitzy ad campaign that goes in to promoting a Hollywood film, producers and writers of the Filipino-American film "The Debut" must be content with a hands-on approach as they commute from city to city, visiting shopping malls and community groups to woo potential viewers -- one person at a time. Grass-roots ‘Debut
The filmmaker hopes that his movie will help
put Filipino Americans on the national radarStories by Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.comSince early May, the filmmakers and crew behind the independent Filipino-American film have appeared all over town, distributing flyers at concerts and other large events, colleges, high schools, social organizations, open markets and churches. One of the places that filmmakers showed up -- along with other members of their promotional committee -- was at the May 25 grand opening of the Marukai 99 Cents Superstore in Waipahu.
So much for glamour.
The group's efforts offer a lesson in guerrilla-style film promotion. After all, not every filmmaker is lucky enough to be able to work with a Hollywood-size advertising budget. Before visiting a city, members post information on their Web site requesting assistance for living space, transportation and volunteers to help distribute fliers.
"The Debut"
Opens Friday at Consolidated Ward, Kapolei and Koolau, and Signature Pearl Highlands theaters
Honolulu is the 13th city the filmmakers have visited in promoting "The Debut." The filmmakers have relied on a network of friends and relatives, plus a good Samaritan or two, who open their homes for the film's opening, in this case, Friday (a review of the film will be carried in Friday's Star-Bulletin Weekend section).
Melanie Fontanilla heads a "grass-roots committee" that has spent more than a year traveling the country to build an audience for the film.
She and committee member Lily Prijoles are staying with a Kaimuki woman they met while promoting the film on the University of Hawai'i campus. Others have also hosted the remaining committee members during their stay in Hawai'i.
"We displaced their kids, we took over their bedrooms," producer-director Gene Cajayon said. "The kids had to sleep with their parents for several weeks. That's Hawaii for you, baby. That's what it's all about, much love. We're everybody's hanai kids for the next several months."
Associate producers Patricio Ginelsa Jr. and John Manal Castro are staying with friends in Pearl City and Makiki, respectively. "We've been very fortunate. It proves the community is out there to support us," said Ginelsa.
During the run of "The Debut," committee members and volunteers will be stationed at designated theaters, selling promotional T-shirts, CDs and posters for "The Debut."
"That's what's different from us vs. the typical Hollywood film," said Cajayon, who went into debt to finance the film, "I'm gonna be at this theater (Consolidated Ward Theatres) every single day, day in, day out. We have no lives, basically."
SO FAR, their efforts seem to be paying off. "The Debut" continues to draw audiences on the mainland, and received rave reviews in Los Angeles and Chicago, where theaters were packed for two months. Cajayon hopes to repeat that success in Honolulu, where the film's screenings are being sponsored by the Mabuhay Festival and FilCom Center.
"The Debut," which won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2000 Hawai'i International Film Festival, is about a young Filipino American who loses touch with his heritage as he tries to assimilate, to his family's dismay.
The film's producers and writers say the film's universal story line has appeal beyond a Filipino audience.
Although the committee targets destinations where homogenous Filipino communities exist -- such as San Francisco, Las Vegas, Northwood, Va., and Saipan -- they said a third of their viewers are non-Filipinos.
DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Gene Cajayon, director-producer of "The Debut," explained his new film to Patsy Kishimoto at the Marukai 99 Cents Superstore. Cajayon took advantage of the May 25 opening of the Waipahu store to reach a crowd.
"We get this really strong crossover because the word of mouth is so strong," Cajayon said. "Diversity sells. Hollywood doesn't understand that."
Associate producer John Castro recalled a Hungarian man who approached him in tears after seeing the film. His parents had immigrated to America from Hungary 50 years ago and the film reflected his relationship with his parents while growing up in America.
"It was really a touching experience," said Castro, 32. "It causes that dialogue between parents and kids."
THE grass-roots committee is made up of adults in their early 20s and early 30s, who describe their relationships as a cross between "Friends" and the "Real World." However, all members share the same vision: To break Asian-American stereotypes and to level the playing field for Asian Americans in the film industry.
"We're the second-largest (Asian population in the Unites States), but we still don't see us (on film)," Fontanilla said.
Ginelsa added, "When we grew up, we never saw films like this. We never saw Filipino Americans in TV ... If they were, they were usually stereotypical or something to be ashamed of."
Cajayon, 30, who attended film school at Loyola Marymount University, singled out the popular John Hughes movie, "Sixteen Candles," for featuring a foreign exchange student named Long Duck Dong.
"How horrible (an example) of Asian manhood is that?! You know ... it was disgusting," he said.
Current movies such as "The Fast and the Furious" also reduce Asian Americans to background players, Ginelsa added.
Although the constant traveling can be daunting, in the end it's all worth it. "It ('The Debut') provides an image that we didn't have access to when we were growing up," said Ginelsa, who attended University of Southern California film school. "Seeing Filipino Americans validates that we exist; we can sing, we can dance, we can fall in love, too. We're not just reduced to martial arts or delivering Chinese food.
"It's a regular experience for us to see kids coming out in tears, to see parents coming out, literally in tears because it's a spiritual experience to see yourself on screen for the first time."
Although another break-out film, "American Adobo," told the story of first-generation Filipinos who moved from the Philippines to New York, "The Debut" is about the conflict between those who left the Philippines and successive generations raised in America.
"There's nothing invalid about the 'American Adobo' experience. Absolutely, that's a story worth telling, but it's a very, very different perspective," Cajayon said. While "American Adobo" perpetuates the idea that Filipinos are all recent immigrants, "we have been an intrinsic part of American culture for a long time."
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Frustrated by the negative portrayal of Asian-Americans in the film industry, Gene Cajayon decided to write a short film on the struggles that second-generation Filipino-Americans face while growing up in the United States. The filmmaker hopes that his movie
will help put Filipino Americans
on the national radarStories by Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.comInitially, the 10-minute film was created in 1991 as Cajayon's thesis for his film production degree at Loyola Marymount University. It grew into an award-winning 90-minute film that would run in selected theaters from Saipan to New York.
The 30-year-old filmmaker of Filipino, Vietnamese and French descent was born in Saigon to Renato and Francoise Cajayon. He and his family later migrated to Chicago and Orange County, Calif., where "I definitely grew up with a more kind of a white-washed Filipino perspective," he said.
In his first feature film, "The Debut," main character Ben Mercado is raised in the United States and secretly enrolls in art school, although his father wants him to study medicine.
Like the father in the film, Cajayon said, "My parents have never been supportive of my career in film."
Nevertheless, Cajayon's love of film led to "The Debut," which won the award for Best Feature Film at the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2000 Hawai'i International Film Festival.
5 CARD PRODUCTIONS
Portraying three generations in a Filipino-American family are, from left, Eddie Garcia, Danté Basco and Tirso Cruz III.
But first Cajayon had to deal with a case of writer's block. Then he met John Manal Castro at a film festival held at the University of California in Los Angeles. Castro was promoting his film, "Diary of a Gangsta Sucka," a mockumentary of middle-class Filipino Americans who act like gangster wannabes. "I thought it was hilarious. That (humor is) exactly what (my) movie needed," Cajayon said.
The two started working together in 1994 and eight drafts later, completed "The Debut's" 103-page script, which Cajayon took to Hollywood, only to find little demand for a film featuring an all-Filipino-American cast.
After dozens of rejections, Cajayon obtained a $200,000 production grant from the National Asian American Telecommunications Association in 1996. Later that year, Cajayon's partner, Lisa Onodera, a former Hawaii resident and producer of "Picture Bride," raised the remainder of the film's budget.
Funding was a major obstacle in completing the film. Through grass-root efforts, Cajayon received $500 to $1,000 donations from various communities, and used personal credit cards for the balance. In 1998, Cajayon filed for bankruptcy after reaching $250,000 in credit card debt.
"I had 21 credit cards. ... The movie wasn't getting made anytime soon. I had people calling me left and right. It was stressing me out," Cajayon said.
"The Debut," which cost about $1 million to produce, was shot in Los Angeles.
Having endured a decade of writing, producing and campaigning, Cajayon hopes to bring Filipino-American stories to mainstream audiences and turn heads at major film production companies who currently see "no economic incentive to represent our community," Cajayon said.
Cajayon calls out to Hawaii residents to "vote with their dollars."
"Come out and buy a ticket, buy a T-shirt and help us keep it going and bring it to more cities," he said.
On the Web: More information on "Debut" may be found at www.debutfilm.com.
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