It was Vilma Santos, the “Star for All Seasons,” who provided the prompt for the story that would become Uninvited. “Gusto niya ng film na nangyari lang ng 24 hours,” says the film’s director, Dan Villegas.
With this germ of an idea, Villegas and director Antoinette Jadaone, who are producing this film under their company Project 8 Projects (Fan Girl, Hintayan ng Langit, Never Not Love You), came up with the basic premise: a woman seeking revenge against an influential figure during a party. From there, screenwriter Dodo Dayao’s job was to “expand and dramatize” that. “All I had was this mental image of Ate Vi all bloodied up by the end of it, and we knew she had to be terribly out of her depth,” says Dayao, an acclaimed director himself.
Uninvited follows a night of intrigue with a cast of characters who all have secrets of their own. The cast is stacked: Aga Mulach, Nadine Lustre, Tirso Cruz III, Elijah Canlas, Lotlot De Leon, Mylene Dizon, Gabby Padilla, RK Bagatsing, Ketchup Eusebio, Gio Alvarez, Cholo Baretto, and Nonie Buencamino. We see all of them lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce on one another.
All-out Actors
Now, a bit of history. Uninvited is an entry to the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival, Santos’ second consecutive MMFF film since last year’s When I Met You in Tokyo where she paired once more with her onscreen partner Christopher De Leon. The film reunites Santos with Mulach after almost 30 years. They previously starred in films such as Jose Javier Reyes’ Nag-Iisang Bituin and One and Only Star, and Maryo J. Delos Reyes’ Sinungaling Mong Puso, a feisty romantic drama that begins with Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.”
Uninvited executive producer John Bryan Diamante, who’s also returning to the MMFF roster this year after the success of the Piolo Pascual slasher Mallari, has mentioned that the stacked cast does come with a hefty price tag. But for him, the caliber of talent in the film alone makes it all worth it.
“For me, success isn’t just about box office numbers — though they are undeniably important — it’s about creating a cultural moment,” he tells me. “I’ll gauge the success of Uninvited by how it resonates with audiences and sparks conversations about its themes. If the film can capture the hearts of viewers and elevate the standard of Filipino filmmaking, that’s a win.” Of course, critical acclaim, festival recognition, and the ability to attract more Filipinos back to theaters are also strong indicators of success, Diamante says.
Diamante and Villegas met during an afterparty for Mallari, which was shot by Uninvited cinematographer Pao Orendain. They hit it up and made sure to work on a future project, which would eventually become Jaime Pacena III’s Kono Basho, an international co-production by Project 8 Projects and Mentorque Productions set in Japan which featured Filipino and Japanese actors. The film won four awards at the 2024 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, including Best Director, Best Cinematography (for Villegas), and Best Actress (for Gabby Padilla).
Villegas revealed that everyone on Uninvited was their first choice for the roles. From there, creating the characters has been a collaborative process for everyone — especially Santos, Mulach, and Lustre.
“Iba din ka-work ng mga old school actors like Ate Vi, Kuya Aga. Very receptive. And na-appreciate ko ‘yong effort at input ng mga actors na, for example, si Nadine. Super na-appreciate ko na ginagawa ko pa lang ‘yong character sheet ng character niya na Nicole, nag-send na siya ng super habang back story. Tapos she had her own playlist for the character.”
For Santos, her character Eva was all about her tenacity as a mother since, as Villegas says, Uninvited is ultimately a film about a mother and her love for her daughter. “So ‘yong mga input [ni Ate V], [it’s about] ‘Nanay ako [at] gagawin ko lahat for my child.’ Even ‘yong sa atake niya sa pag-acting, [it’s all about that].”
For Villegas, Uninvited is a film driven by the characters, and he is fortunate enough that the whole ensemble has given such great performances to make the film come alive.
“Ang showbiz sounding na ito eh, parang nakakatuwa na ‘yong cast sobrang game. Tinodo talaga nila,” says Villegas with a laugh.
A Kind of Magic
Despite this, Villegas admitted that the project initially seemed daunting to him. This is the first time in six years that he’ll be returning to the director’s seat for a full-length feature. Villegas’s last feature film was Hintayan ng Langit in 2018, which starred Gina Pareño and the late Eddie Garcia. In between, he’s directed TV shows such as the boxing drama Suntok sa Buwan, the thriller Cattleya Killer (a sequel to the film Sa Aking Mga Kamay starring Aga Mulach), and the Netflix foodie drama mini-series Replacing Chef Chico starring Alessandra De Rossi and Piolo Pascual. So, for Villegas to return to the big screen after years of directing TV and streaming shows, there was a bit of re-assessing and finding back his footing.
“The question was, ‘Kaya ko pa ba ito?’ Kasi iba ‘yong captive audience [ng pelikula], na papanoorin nila for almost two hours ang film mo [versus] TV and streaming. Tapos, iba rin ‘yong pace na ginagawa mo, ibang medium siya. So, thankfully, I had a great team — a support group — sa process nitong Uninvited.”
Villegas’ filmography has varied since he began directing, starting with the Cinemalaya entry Mayohan in 2010. He followed up with the romantic comedy English Only, Please in 2014, his first MMFF film. Although Uninvited will be his sixth film at the film festival, including his producing (Fan Girl) and cinematography (Love at First Stream) credits, Villegas says he still looks back at his first MMFF film fondly. The film won him Best Director at the 40th MMFF, besting entries directed by Chito Roño and Joyce Bernal.
“I teach now in Ateneo. Tapos I mentioned that sobrang thankful ako [sa English Only, Please]. It was exactly 10 years ago na napasok yung English Only, Please. ‘Yan ‘yong big break ko sa industry.”
To anyone who has followed Villegas’s filmography, he tends to work with the same crew over the years, like any auteur. Uninvited features several of these creatives, such as Orendain and composer Len Calvo, who both worked on Cattleya Killer and Hintayan ng Langit, and editor Marya Ignacio, who has worked on all of Villegas’s directorial efforts since English Only, Please. Villegas calls this recurring collaboration “magic.”
“Kapag nasa set kayo or even in post while editing na, magkakatinginan lang kayo, either your cinematographer or your editor or production designer or whoever. Tapos, alam niyo na either good or bad ‘yong take or act. Hindi na kayo maguusap. May magic eh. May zen na hindi ko ma-explain. [That’s the kind of] workflow na love ko’ng meron with people I’m working with.”
The question was, ‘Kaya ko pa ba ito?’ Kasi iba ‘yong captive audience [ng pelikula], na papanoorin nila for almost two hours ang film mo [versus] TV and streaming. Tapos, iba rin ‘yong pace na ginagawa mo, ibang medium siya.
The most crucial of these collaborations is with director Jadaone, which began in her film That Thing Called Tadhana, the origin of the partnership that would become Project 8 Projects. This production house was formalized in 2017 with Villegas’ Changing Partners. Project 8 Projects’ output contains some of the gems of Philippine cinema in the last ten years — from blockbusters like Alone/Together and Never Not Love You, to festival darlings such as Samantha Lee’s sapphic coming-of-age Rookie, and Carl Joseph Papa’s animated drama Iti Mapukpukaw (The Missing). Their forthcoming projects include the Maris Racal-starrer Sunshine, which already premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this year, and Janus Victoria’s Diamonds in the Sand, another international co-production that premiered at the 2024 Tokyo FILMeX, and the Jolina Magdangal-Marvin Agustin reunion that’s currently in production.
Business of Good Storytelling
Project 8 Projects was also why Villegas recently went to business school, which he says was an eye-opening experience for him as a creative running a business.
He says, “Isa sa greatest learning ko sa business school — parang binasag ako ng isang mentor ko — sabi niya, ‘Kayong mga filmmakers, kayong mga artists, ang short-sighted ng tingin niyo sa ginagawa niyo kasi you think by project and you don’t think yourselves as business entities, as your own enterprise.’”
Creatives, his mentor adds, should see their craft as a business offering a unique service. The challenge then is how to convert that unique service to financial compensation.
“They teach kasi in film school the art and science of filmmaking. Pero ‘yong business part of it na, kumbaga, paano ka magpa-presyo [ng] sarili mo? How do you market yourself? Paano ka makakuha ng work? Paano ka mag sustain na pumapasok ‘yong work?”
Project 8 Projects has been hitting it out of the park in terms of business collaborations, from partnerships with Prime Video (Drag Den, Takeshi’s Castle Philippines), and Netflix (Replacing Chef Chico) to international co-productions that bolster their credibility in the region. And if the gamble with Uninvited pays off, Project 8 Projects will continue to become an exemplar of how to make a business out of good storytelling.
An important element of that success is bringing more audiences to watch Filipino films, especially in an era where streaming seems more economical for viewers. The cinematic experience is still different for Villegas, especially for filmmakers who lovingly pour their heart and soul into their craft.
“Magkaibang appreciation ‘yong mag-isa ka: malaking screen, maganda ‘yong projection, maganda ‘yong sound. Ma-appreciate mo ‘yong work, not only by the actors but also the cinematographers and production designers na nilagay ‘yong mga details na ‘yan. It’s a different experience watching [in the] theater [versus] cellphone mo o sa laptop e. Sana magbalik [ang mas maraming tao] and happy ako na ‘yong pelikula ni Direk Cathy [Garcia-Sampana] — ‘yong Hello Love, Again — kumita ng one billion [pesos]. So, nakakatuwa na bumabalik ‘yong mga tao sa sinehan.”
‘Uninvited’ opens on December 25 along with the rest of the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival films.
