Serbis: Brillante Mendoza's Blue Theater

Director Brillane Mendoza takes a break from the Cannes festivites to discuss his film about a family living in a porn theater.

by Karl Rozemeyer

Director Brillane Mendoza on the set of Serbis Courtesy of Fortissimo Films

Brillante Mendoza is exhausted and stressed out. When he was informed that his film Serbis would be in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, he was "surprised, overwhelmed and happy," but more than that, he was worried he would never get the film finished in time. At 4 am the morning of the premiere, Mendoza was running a technical rehearsal of the film.

The film focuses on a takes place in a run-down porn theater in Angeles City in the Philippines. While gay and straight sex is being traded for cash, the family who operates it faces their own everyday travails: Nanay Flor brings a legal case against her bigamist husband and loses; her daughter Nayda faces an unexpected pregnancy; her nephew Alan can't get rid of a boil on his butt and ends up running away. Gay and straight sex for cash happens in the backrooms of the theater. The sound of traffic is ever present. This is not a film for the faint of heart.

Mendoza initially worked as a set decorator before entering the world of commercial advertising. Then, with the financial backing of a friend, he made his first feature project, The Masseur. His film Foster Child was presented last year in Cannes in the Director's Fortnight category. He chats exclusively with Premiere from Cannes about finding a calling late in life, aesthetics, and filming blowjobs.

This is the third film from the Philippines to make it into competition in Cannes. How much does that mean to you since the last film from your country was received 24 years ago?
I am really so proud and so honored by the selection. But it adds pressure, I think; that is what is most important to me. Cannes is very important to every filmmaker. It is every filmmaker's dream, but I think that filmmakers shouldn't think that it is the ultimate thing. I enjoy the process and I enjoy what I am doing.

Serbis Courtesy of Fortissimo Films

I believe that there was a five-minute standing ovation for Foster Child last year. After that experience, surely you felt inspired to come back?
At Cannes last year, I was overwhelmed and I was happy, and they recognized the film. But it was only at that standing ovation that I [fully appreciated] that I was in Cannes in the Director's Fortnight.

Were you already working on Serbis at that time last year?
Longer than that. After The Masseur, I wanted to make Serbis. I wanted to do an underground sex thing in the Philippines. But a lot of things came along, and the project was put on hold. We needed a lot of research. We had to go out of town to look for this cinema [theater]. We went to the south. We went to the north...