“My friend and I thought, why are there no movies about an action grandma?”
That’s how Martika Ramirez Escobar conceived Leonor Will Never Die, her audacious feature directing debut which won a special jury prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, the Amplify Voices Award at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and just recently earned a best international feature nomination for Film Independent’s Spirit Awards.
Escobar, in our interview via email, said that the absence of an “action star grandma” in Philippine cinema propelled her to write Leonor Will Never Die. “I love older people because they possess the wisdom that we need in life to see its beauty…From that, it evolved into a self-reflexive film about a writer writing her own life.”
While Leonor Will Never Die has a grandma as the lead action star, it is anything but geriatric – it’s an innovative film that was invited to many festivals, including Melbourne, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and Singapore.
The film’s production notes offer a synopsis without revealing spoilers: “Leonor Reyes was once a major player in the Filipino film industry after creating a string of successful action films, but now her household struggles to pay the bills. When she reads an advertisement looking for screenplays, Leonor begins tinkering with an unfinished script about the quest of a young noble, Ronwaldo, forced to avenge his brother’s murder at the hands of thugs.”
“While her imagination provides some escape from reality, she goes all-in after an accident involving a TV set knocks her out, sends her into a coma, and transports her inside the incomplete movie. Now, Leonor can play out her wildest dreams firsthand and discover the perfect ending to her story.”
The result is Escobar’s take on the movie-within-a-movie conceit that is an ingenious paean to film, especially Philippine cinema and its macho action movies and melodramas.
Escobar, a fresh voice in the male-dominated Filipino movie industry, who grew up watching old Tagalog films on television, has come up with a comedy suffused by her fond familiarity with the conventions of her country’s movies. And while it is a romp through the many bakbakan (fights) and iyakan (crying) staples that Escobar saw, Leonor Will Never Die has serious underpinnings, especially in its allusions to former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte administration’s infamous drug war killings.
The movie is also a heartfelt ode to writing and the creative process by Escobar, whose film school thesis, Stone Heart, made it to the 19^th Busan International Film Festival and captured the best short film prize in the 2015 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.
“Writing, like the film itself, had its own complicated journey,” said the director. She also struggled with finding financing. “From what I remember, it was eight years of pitching and begging from people, companies, brands, whoever.”
It helped that she found her unlikely but feisty heroine in Sheila Francisco, whose credits include a critically praised performance as Bloody Mary in Trevor Nunn’s revival of South Pacific in London. The cast includes Bong Cabrera, Rocky Salumbides, and Anthony Falcon.
“Sheila was the closest to how I imagined Leonor on paper and in mind,” Escobar said about the actress. With Francisco’s performance, the filmmaker has ensured that Leonor will indeed never die.