Indie film director Mendoza eyes film on young Digong’s life

ANTIPOLO CITY, Rizal — Award winning independent films (indie film) director Brillante Mendoza is keen on doing a film on the life of a young Rodrigo Roa Duterte as he was growing up in Davao City.

Mendoza, who attended the Antipolo City leg of the Brillante Mendoza Film Festival at SM City Masinag here over the weekend told

Manila Bulletin that if he will be given a chance to do a film about President Duterte, he would like to focus on his childhood days.

“I would love to do a movie about the childhood days of the President, how he was raised to become the country’s president by his parents,” Mendoza said.

But Mendoza is open to the possibility that President Duterte might turn down the proposal to do a film on his life as a young Digong.

Mendoza’s “Taklub,” a 2015 film about the struggles of the people of Tacloban in Leyte during the supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013 was featured in the one day only special screening at the SM Cinema here.

‘Taklub’, a 2015 Cannes Film Festival entry, won citations such as Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury and Uncertain Regard at Cannes in May, 2015; Audience Vote for Best Feature Film in Panorama at Beirut International Film Festival; and Audience Award at 16th Asiatica Film Mediale, held in Rome, Italy, on Nov. 28, 2015.

President Duterte was born on March 28, 1945, in Maasin, Southern Leyte, to Vicente Duterte, who was governor of the undivided Davao in the late 1950s, and Soledad “Soleng” Roa, a teacher and civic leader.

The Duterte family moved from Cebu to Leyte and then finally to Davao in 1951. His father Vicente comes from Danao, Cebu, and his mother Soledad is a Maranao born in Agusan del Norte.