At the Toronto International Film Festival, director Antoinette Jadaone brings Sunshine to the global stage. “Sorry!” Maris Racal says during our call while packing her suitcase. To the disappointment of many, the plane she’s boarding won’t be heading to the Toronto International Film Festival for the world premiere of Sunshine ; she’s on her way to Italy to film another project.
“But I’m so happy that Direk Tonet will get to experience it,” she says. “I’ll be there in spirit!” Sunshine , a film directed by Antoinette Jadaone (fondly known as Direk Tonet), tells the story of a young female gymnast who accidentally gets pregnant while training for the Olympics . A week after its world premiere at TIFF, Jadaone shares that she’s grateful for the opportunity.
“Seeing our kababayans sa audience, it’s a different feeling,” she says. “It ceases to be just a film. It’s a story that lives on with them, and I feel so lucky to be a Filipino filmmaker today.
” In an interview with Vogue Philippines , translated from Filipino to English and condensed for clarity, Jadaone and Racal talk about the making of the film. Direk Tonet, where did you get the idea for Sunshine ? What influenced the direction you took for it? Antoinette Jadaone : It began in 2020. The germ came after I watched Jojo Rabbit where a kid imagined a fictitious Hitler into life.
I want to enter the chaos, the confusion inside the mind of a pregnant teenage girl whose life is just about .