The Japanese film Renoir by Chie Hayakawa is headed to the Main Competition slate of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival this year, and with it is the Philippine flag. The film is a co-production between Japan, France, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia. On the Philippine side, Renoir is co-produced by Alemberg Ang of Daluyong Studios and actresses Sylvia Sanchez and Ria Atayde of Nathan Studios.
“I’m beyond ecstatic kasi there was a point talaga in my career that I wanted to give up na,” Ang tells Rolling Stone Philippines. He mentioned that he considered teaching back full-time in 2022 when the initial pre-production of Renoir was being done. “But projects like these, and the opportunity to work with some of the most talented filmmakers in the world, kept me going.”
Renoir also features a sequence shot in the Philippines, with Filipino bit players.
The film was shot in Japan from July to September 2024 and overseas in November 2024.
“We are grateful and overwhelmed,” says Sanchez. “It’s crazy in the best way possible. We at Nathan [Studios] have been doing work for the past three years, sometimes questioning if any of it truly matters, and then suddenly it does. To have been a part of the team behind the film is already such a feat, but this is beyond what we ever imagined.”
This is Ang’s second collaboration with Hayakawa. Their first was Plan 75, which premiered at the Un Certain Regard slate of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The film, about a fictional euthanasia service to Japan’s aging population, featured a Filipino caregiver as a character and won the Special Mention Award in the Caméra d’Or competition.
Renoir is a coming-of-age tale set in the 1980s and told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl Fuki (Suzuki Yui), who is coping with a terminally ill father and her constantly stressed mother (Ishida Hikari). Amid all of the adult turmoil surrounding her, she delves deeper into her own imagination.
The film stars Lily Franky as Fuki’s father. Franky also stars in the Japan-Malaysia-Philippines co-production Diamonds in the Sand, directed by Janus Victoria. It is set to have its International Premiere at the 2025 Far East Film Festival.
The last Filipino film on the Main Competition slate of Cannes was Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’Rosa, where Jaclyn Jose won the Best Actress Award in 2016.
In 2024, the Philippines co-produced Trương Minh Quý’s Viet and Nam was part of the Un Certain Regard slate, which is focused on unconventional styles and non-traditional storytelling. The film has been disowned by Vietnam and has been jokingly called a Filipino film now.
Filipino films that were also part of last year’s Cannes Film Festival are the Director’s Factory Philippines shorts, Arvin Belarmino’s short film Radikals at the Semaine de la Critique, and Lino Brocka’s Bona at the Cannes Classics program.
Some of the films produced by Daluyong Studios include Petersen Vargas’ Some Nights I Feel Like Walking, Kip Oebanda’s Liway, and Alvin Yapan’s Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa. Nathan Studios is behind films such as Richard Sommes’s Topakk, Janus Victoria’s Diamonds in the Sand, and the TV series Cattleya Killer.
Renoir is co-produced by Japan’s Loaded Films, Happinet Phantom Studios, and Dongyu; Indonesia’s KawanKawan Media, Singapore’s Akanga Films Asia, and France’s ARTE France Cinema, Panoramine, and Ici et Là Productions.
