Direk Joey on what Walwal is all about
‘I am the only senior citizen on the project,’ direk Joey Javier Reyes unabashedly admitted. ‘The writer and the actors are all millennials.’
The writer, Gerald Mark Foliente, is described by Joey as the best student in his writing class in La Salle.
‘He’s the youngest accepted workshopper of Ricky Lee,’ said Joey. ‘Except for my few inputs, everything in the script is from his point of view. Well, who would be a better person to write about millennials than a millennial himself?’
According to Joey, Walwal is an updated version of his 1994 film Pare Ko about that time’s youth, starring Jomari Yllana, Mark Anthony Fernandez, Gio Alvarez and Jao Mapa. ‘Walwal is a growing-up film,’ explained Joey. ‘The word walwal means walang pakialam, used by millennnials to describe their easy-go-lucky lifestyle when they go out to have fun, to have good time, when they go out drinking or dancing to forget their problems, to de-stress themselves. During my time, the word used was nagwawala (letting go).’
As a professor in La Salle, Joey is surrounded by millennials so he’s not a stranger to them.
‘Life then was simple,’ added Joey. ‘There was no social media, mas kampante
ang mundo. Ngayon, ang gulo-gulo! That’s why the problems of today’s youth are far different from the problems of the previous generation. Before, we lived for the future. Today, the millennials live for the moment.’