“Fangirl” isn’t the only upcoming Antoinette Jadaone film we’re excited for. Three days ago, the “Never Not Love You” director announced that her film “Boldstar” is coming to Berlinale Co-Production Market in February.
According to her Instagram post, Jadaone has been developing this film since 2016. “[I’ve] doing lots of revisions and story drafts. Now, we’ll be in my/our first European co-production market,” writes the director. Her film “Boldstar” aims to tackle Philippine cinema’s short-lived fascination with softcore pornstars.
The film will follow an ex-boldstar trying to live in an increasingly misogynistic environment in the Philippines. “Boldstar” will star one of Jadaone’s favored leading ladies, Angelica Panganiban. Its script is currently under development. Last year, its pitch won the CJ Entertainment award at the 22nd Asian Project Market (APM) in Busan, South Korea.
“Around 20 years ago, the soft porn genre was all the rage in Philippine cinema,” explains Jadaone to Variety. “We had what we call ‘boldstars,’ the female protagonists in these usually low-budget, but high-grossing, ‘bold’ films. Then the rom-com genre began to rise to popularity, and the boldstars were replaced by the quirky leading ladies. What has become of the bold stars then? How are they living now? Their 15 minutes of fame and fortune is over.”
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Variety eyes this project as Jadaone’s return to her indie cinema roots. Although she’s been slinging us great yet poignant romcoms with the hottest love teams, maybe it is time for us to see another side of the filmmaker. Maybe something similar to her debut film “Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay?”
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This might be the year we’ll see Jadaone’s “Boldstar” unfolding before our eyes. With a theme as timely as Filipino misogyny, this film is definitely worth anticipating.
Poster from “Boldstar”