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“The Abortion Ban May Be Protecting the Unborn, But It’s Killing Our Women”: Antoinette Jadaone on Sunshine
Maris Racal in Sunshine Around sixteen years ago, the late great Filipino film critic Alexis Tioseco saw Antoinette Jadaone’s student short films ‘plano (2005) and Saling Pusa (2006) and began championing her work. In the words of critic Oggs Cruz, Tioseco thought Jadaone was “the person that is most qualified to give Filipino mainstream filmmaking that much-needed burst of novel inspiration,” given that her “shorts are all tightly packaged confections that marry the popular appeal of mainstream escapist entertainment and the unique wit of more adventurous fare.” Two years after Tioseco’s death, Jadaone made her feature debut—a love letter to and critique of Filipino cinema called Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay—which she dedicated to him.
Cinema in the Philippines has changed drastically in the years since, but Tioseco’s predictions about the filmmaker’s career seem to have come true. Jadaone, colloquially referred to as “Direk Tonet,” has become nearly a household name, a rare filmmaker who’s managed to cross over to every conceivable form of media in the Philippine entertainment industry, from writing and directing award-winning films such as That Thing Called Tadhana to hosting one of the country’s most successful podcasts Ang Walang Kwentang Podcast to creatively spearheading and directing some of the most prominent local television shows in recent memory like On the Wings of Love, The Kangks Show, Drag Den and Simula sa Gitna.
In her debut Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay (2011), Jadaone uses mockumentary to explore the career of an aging extra given her first crack at a lead, exposing hypocrisies within the local film industry along the way. In That Thing Called Tadhana (2014), she critiques the fantasies created by romance and travelogue films while using the formulas of both genres for a film about self-discovery. In Never Not Love You (2018), she injects the romance drama formula with larger questions of migration and labor. In Fan Girl (2020), she crafts a twisted picture of a young girl whose fanaticism is tested when she meets her idol, creating parallels with the blind political allegiance that allowed Rodrigo Duterte and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to ascend into power.
Her newest film Sunshine might seem like territory already explored by artists—most recently by Eliza Hittman in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Audrey Diwan in Happening, Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin in The Janes, or Dea Kulumbegashvili in April. But such conversations remain largely unaddressed in the Philippines, the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia, where abortion is still criminalized and stigma against pregnancy out of wedlock is high and death-dealing. Using the exoskeleton of a sports film, Jadaone and her collaborators zoom in on Sunshine’s titular character (played by Maris Racal), a teen gymnast whose shot as an international athlete is jeopardized by a sudden pregnancy. With little money, no one to turn to and the real possibility of imprisonment and death, Sunshine’s attempts to seek an abortion to secure her future reveal the moral and existential failures around her.
Just before Sunshine’s premiere at Toronto, another Filipino film was given an X rating by the Philippines’ Movie Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) for being “an attack on fundamental belief of the Catholic and Christian faiths,” preventing it from being screened theatrically without special considerations or further appeal. Amidst a surging typhoon, I visit Jadaone at the Mowelfund Film Institute in Quezon City just as she and her team make the final checks before it was screened at TIFF’s Centerpiece section; following its premiere there, Sunshine was nominated for an Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Youth Film
This interview has been translated to English and edited for brevity and clarity.
Filmmaker: What was the seed of this project?
Jadaone: I watched Jojo Rabbit—I loved it! I love Taika!—and it got me thinking: What if there was a teenager who got pregnant and we were able to peer into her mind as she was making the decision? The back-and-forth of it all: Should I push through with it? How? Will anyone know? Will I be doomed in the eyes of God? What if that all manifested in an “imaginary friend”? That was in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when our industry was shut down. I was getting restless. I knew I needed to write. I started interviewing teenagers who got pregnant early—both who continued their pregnancy and those who terminated. Their stories were chilling. I wanted to know more.
Filmmaker: In the time between Fan Girl and Sunshine, you’ve managed to produce several successful films and television shows through your production company Project 8 Projects. Did any of these endeavors inform the stories you’re interested in writing and directing or change your approach and preoccupations in filmmaking?
Jadaone: All the shows—The Kangks Show, Simula sa Gitna, Suntok sa Buwan and Replacing Chef Chico—are so different from Fan Girl and Sunshine, but they gave me time to re-evaluate myself as a filmmaker and storyteller before embarking on Sunshine. The time off to work on other projects was a welcome break—I had time to see Sunshine again with fresh eyes. That’s how I usually am anyways with editing. We barrel through, then stop for a few weeks so that when we reenter the process, we have fresher eyes and a fresher mindset. Working on The Kangks Show, Simula sa Gitna and Suntok sa Buwan also introduced me to who would eventually be our Sunshine, Maris Racal. We have developed a close friendship through the years.
Filmmaker: Maris Racal has been in several of your works, from The Kangks Show to Simula sa Gitna. Your relationship has been likened to Greta Gerwig’s relationship with Saoirse Ronan. How did your collaboration begin and what about Racal made her one of your muses?
Jadaone: It’s a bit embarrassing to be compared to Greta and Saoirse. [Laughs] But thank you.
I first worked with Maris in The Kangks Show. She wasn’t our first choice then. The original actress we had in mind couldn’t make it because of a schedule conflict. Everything happens for a reason. She played Cassandra, whose nemesis is Doc Kara, played by the always great Angelica Panganiban. Any young, unprepared actress would falter beside Angge, but Maris pulled it through—and how! She would later star in another Project 8 Projects series Suntok sa Buwan, directed by Sunshine producer Geo Lomuntad. I really loved her, so I also got her for Simula sa Gitna. She can do comedy and the unique blend of Filipino romance (kilig). In between those projects, I was starting to cast for Sunshine. While I was writing it, I wasn’t thinking about who would play the titular role. After working with Maris, I started to think of her for the role. First, she fit the role physically. She has the height and body built of a gymnast. And she’s a dancer! She has rhythm and flexibility. I sent her the script and asked her to read it. She pored over it immediately and said she kept crying page after page. She was game to do it. But before that, I asked her if she agreed with the message of the film, because it’s important for me that we align in that way. She said she’d get back to me. After a few weeks, she agreed to do the film and was Sunshine thereon.
Filmmaker: We’re hot off the 2024 Olympics where Carlos Yulo just won two gold medals for men’s gymnastics. The sports film often contrasts the character’s personal and professional lives through the sport itself. Here, the cleanliness and insistence on the beauty of rhythmic gymnastics seem at odds with Sunshine’s inner turmoil. Could you talk about the choice of rhythmic gymnastics (instead of other sports) and the process of preparing Racal for the physicality of the role?
Jadaone: The first sport I thought of was volleyball. Women’s volleyball was on the rise in the Philippines, so I wanted to have that additional pressure on the character —the games would have been broadcast on Philippine TV. But I let it go because first, it was a team sport. There wasn’t much pressure for her to decide for herself alone. If she disappears, someone else could easily replace her on the roster and the team could still win, as opposed to gymnastics. The second was that volleyball didn’t highlight the body as much as I wanted compared to gymnastics. Players mostly used their arms, hands, and feet.
I also thought of making it ballet. It required that people watch it in an enclosed hall or performing arts center. The ballerina costume also hugged the body, creating an additional source of insecurity for Sunshine as her belly grew bigger because of the pregnancy. It was also interesting because people have this misconception that ballet is only for the rich. However, there are a lot of underprivileged teenagers who pursue ballet because they love to dance and get to do it because of scholarships or private funding from ballet patrons in the Philippines. But eventually, I realized that even after giving birth, it was still possible to become a [professional] ballerina, so we’d lose the ticking time bomb that was crucial to the narrative.
I chose rhythmic gymnastics because it was a solo event. It was like ballet, because the leotards imparted the same insecurity that you see in the film. With the exception of athletes like Simone Biles, who stilł dominate the sport even [as they near] their 30s, rhythmic gymnastics also had that ticking time bomb. But in most cases, because there are a lot younger, more agile, more flexible gymnasts entering the pool year after year, there’s additional pressure on Sunshine as a rhythmic gymnast. There is a [perceived] age limit of when your body is at your best for competition, which shouldn’t be above 21 or 22. I also chose gymnastics because it was a sport that I wished we would excel more at with enough support—from audiences, but also from the government during training. It was serendipity that the film was premiering after the wins of Carlos Yulo for gymnastics. But we hadn’t really planned that. It was just a beautiful coincidence.
Filmmaker: The jeepney named Gift of God plays a significant part in Sunshine’s coming-to-terms with her moral dilemma. Travel seems to be a persistent image in your works and it’s often tied to your character’s desire for escape from the present or a return to an older version of themselves. Why is commuting so central to your protagonists’ social and personal awakenings?
Jadaone: In all honesty, commuting for us [in the Philippines] is so difficult to do. It’s so unpleasant. Because there’s always a traffic jam, because you’re always waiting or the world is always testing your patience, it becomes a perfect opportunity for a character to reflect on their experiences. You have no choice except to use your time inside a jeep, a taxi or bus to think about your life, because when you get home you don’t have time for serious reflection. You’re too tired. You use that time for sleep. It’s something that happens in the life of every commuter — our lives are wasted in transit, so much so that even our time for soul-searching can’t happen in a better place.
Filmmaker: As you’ve continued filmmaking, I noticed that your protagonists have gotten younger. You began with Lilia Cuntapay, who was in her mid-70s, and now we’re with a protagonist who is in her teens. What has made you interested in girlhood as a subject?
Jadaone: Honestly, I didn’t ponder on it that much. My short films in college had young girls as protagonists (‘plano, Tumbang Preso). When I made Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay, I was fascinated by Lilia’s character as someone who had always been on the fringes of the industry, because I was also then part of the aliping saguiguilid [bottom of the barrel] of the industry and as a script continuity supervisor and production assistant. Unwittingly, I was writing about myself and what I witnessed. Then I shifted to younger protagonists, always women, that more closely mirrored what I was experiencing or wrestling with. The female characters I would write later were my age—Mace in That Thing Called Tadhana especially. There’s something incredibly complex about growing up, especially for girls in today’s world. Girlhood is a period of vulnerability, transformation, and discovery full of internal and external struggles. A lot of films either romanticize or oversimplify this stage in life, but I want to show a period of girlhood or womanhood that’s not perfect, that’s flawed and complex, but embracing that imperfection.
Filmmaker: Sunshine as a character feels pressured to adhere to many rules—not just in rhythmic gymnastics, but also the unspoken rules around motherhood, the Philippines and God. Was there any trepidation when it came to writing how the character navigates the film’s taboo topics?
Jadaone: Writing Sunshine’s character and her journey was definitely a delicate process. I was conscious of the layers of expectations and societal pressures she experiences, especially as a woman in the Philippines, where cultural norms, religious beliefs, and expectations around family and motherhood are so intertwined. Tackling these “taboo” topics was challenging. But when I started interviewing people and doing the research, talking to pregnant teens and those who continued and terminated their pregnancies in their teens, I knew I had to continue. Theirs was an important story to truthfully tell, without sugarcoating her struggles or simplifying the complexity of her dilemmas.
I did extensive research on both rhythmic gymnastics and the different roles women are expected to play in Filipino society. Gymnastics was an interesting metaphor because it’s such a graceful and beautiful sport, yet behind the scenes, it demands rigorous discipline, physical strain and adherence to strict rules—much like the unspoken expectations Sunshine faces in her personal life. About 500 Filipino teenagers become mothers every day. I interviewed poor, young mothers who contemplated abortion but decided to continue with their pregnancy. Their chilling stories mirror a reality we don’t face. The abortion ban may be protecting the unborn, but it’s killing our women too–both literally and figuratively.
As a woman who acknowledges her middle-class privilege, I want to tell the story of those who are not as fortunate. In a third-world country, choice is a privilege. It’s true that it takes a village to raise a child, but who will raise the young woman forced to be a mother because she had no choice? The Philippines is in a dire political, economic and social turmoil. This story goes beyond abortion. Behind every pregnant teenager, after all, is a society that lets this happen to them.
I talked to NGOs, women’s groups, even religious people to give me a more grounded and 360 look at the issues in the film. I sent them drafts of my script and they’d comment on what they thought of the scenes, how to strengthen the voice within it and share what other perspectives needed to be introduced. This helped ground Sunshine’s character in a reality that many women could relate to, even if her specific experience with gymnastics is more niche. I wanted her crises to feel authentic and reflective of the internal battles so many women face, trying to meet everyone’s expectations while finding themselves along the way.
Filmmaker: You have a long-standing relationship with producer Bianca Balbuena, who you created That Thing Called Tadhana and Fan Girl with. Was there any difficulty producing the film considering its subject matter?
Jadaone: At first, we had difficulties getting investors for the film. I sent the script and pitched it to many people, but I understood that it was hard to take a risk on a story like this. Only our respective companies—for me, Project 8 Projects, and for Bianca, Anima Studios—were our initial investors. But as we were closer to the shoot and looking for gap financing, we were fortunate to have Happy Infinite and Cloudy Duck onboard. Cloudy Duck is owned by De La Salle University women’s volleyball team’s Claudia Diaz Cojuangco, a staunch supporter of Philippine women’s sports. It feels so good to have investors who really believe in your film. Then we got funding from the Film Development Council of the Philippines. It was what we needed to finally start production.
Working with Bianca Balbuena has always been a collaborative and enriching experience. I know she fought for Sunshine in Anima. When we worked on That Thing Called Tadhana and Fan Girl, we already had this solid foundation, so we were able to dive deep into more daring material. This isn’t an easy film to produce., but Bianca is a producer who isn’t afraid to take risks, and that’s what makes her such a great partner. She championed the film from the start, along with Dan Villegas and Geo Lomuntad, my two other producers.
Filmmaker: All the scenes related to rhythmic gymnastics are so colorful, bright, and glitzy, while the scenes outside seem darker in tone. What was the process of creating the visual world of Sunshine with your cinematographer Pao Orendain and production designer Eero Francisco?
Jadaone: In creating the visual world of Sunshine, I wanted to emphasize the contrast between the vibrant, glamorous world of rhythmic gymnastics and the darker, more grounded reality that Sunshine faces outside of it. This is my first time working with both Pao and Eero in a full-length film. Pao was onboard from the development stage. I sent him the early draft of the treatment. He got back to me and confessed that he cried, so he was game. We explored how to capture the energy of the gymnastics scenes using bright, saturated lighting and dynamic camera movements. We leaned into the idea that when Sunshine is in her element, everything shines, everything sparkles. It’s a dream world for her, and we made sure that visually, it felt like that for the audience too. This is her safe space. On the other hand, the scenes outside the gym were deliberately more muted. With Eero, we worked on toning down the colors, using a more natural, sometimes somber palette to reflect the challenges Sunshine faces outside her passion. Her struggles have a rawness to them, and we wanted the production design to reflect that.
For Quiapo, I wanted it to be very much real life, just adding some elements here and there. This is the Manila where Sunshine lives. It is not just a milieu but a character, both her friend and foe. Quiapo, nurturing Sunshine’s passion for gymnastics but also aiding her in abortion, will be with life and color, like a nurturing but also negligent parent helping Sunshine decide her future. Though Quiapo is vast, it will be suffocating for Sunshine: Locations are always full of people but she feels alone. The camera follows her like a friend, not judging her every move but just letting her be the child that she is.
Filmmaker: Part of what struck me about Sunshine was how it captured a specific Manila. Beyond the beautiful gymnasiums where Yulo trained, there were many exterior shots in the day and night that showed churches, slums, streets filled with vendors, trains, and even maternity wards. How did you secure these locations and what was the shooting process like?
Jadaone: Securing locations in Manila is both challenging and rewarding, especially when you’re trying to capture the city as authentically as possible. For Sunshine, it was important for us to showcase the raw, real side of Manila—the one people experience every day, beyond the usual postcard images. We took our time in choosing the locations, especially the motel—because I wanted the LRT [Light Rail Transit] to be visible outside of the window. We checked a lot of options, but when we finally saw that particular motel, it was perfect.
It’s so tough to shoot in Manila! We needed a lot of crowd control too. It helped that Maris wasn’t glammed up as Sunshine, so people didn’t realize she was a celebrity while we were shooting scenes. There were times we would use long lenses so people around wouldn’t realize we were shooting Maris from afar. The streets filled with vendors, the slums, and even the churches—they all tell their own stories, and we wanted to preserve that authenticity. It was crucial for us to shoot both day and night to show the different facets .
When it came to locations like the gymnasium where Yulo trained or the maternity wards, these required more formal negotiations. We worked closely with local officials and community leaders to secure access and make sure we were respectful of the spaces and people in them. The shooting process was often unpredictable—we’d have to adjust to the flow of daily life, whether it was traffic, noise or the sudden rain—but that’s also part of what made it special. Those challenges became part of the film’s energy.
Filmmaker: You also have a long-standing working relationship with your editor Benjamin Tolentino, arguably one of the country’s best editors. Considering Sunshine is a psychological coming-of-age film, what about Sunshine’s psyche did you want to capture through the editing and pace?
Jadaone: Oh, I love Ben! He’s my editor, friend, therapist, anchor rolled into one! [Laughs] With every project, I work with a different director of photography, production designer, and music, but not my editor. He’s there from the beginning of my process, sometimes even before I start writing. That’s how we’ve always worked, immersed in the film before words are even turned into images. Another one of my anchors is Karl Castro who, whenever the writing becomes scattered, returns me to my senses. I don’t know how he does it but he always manages to help me navigate my way back into the right direction and perspective, whether the project is mainstream or not.
I would say that collaboration with Bentol is always a significant part of how my films come to life. For Sunshine, a psychological coming-of-age film, we wanted the editing and pacing to reflect the inner turbulence and emotional transitions of the protagonist. The goal was to ensure the audience felt every moment of confusion, clarity, doubt and self-realization as if they were in the character’s shoes. The script takes the perspective of a girl who is too young to make a decision, which is why the editing is like that. Scenes were intimately written, sometimes disjointed, and we matched that through the editing. Bentol and I worked on letting certain moments linger, giving space for her introspection, then juxtaposing that with quicker cuts during more chaotic or overwhelming experiences. This rhythm allowed us to portray the erratic, often non-linear process of growing up and dealing with one’s mental and emotional struggles.
Filmmaker: The trailer had such a delicious score, capturing this shift from teenage dream to adult nightmare, made by Rico Blanco, who is a famous rock artist. What was it about Sunshine’s world that you wanted to capture, mirror, and contrast through the music?
Jadaone: I wanted to have distinct Manila sounds — that’s why I got Pinoy rappers’ songs in the film. It’s my first time working with Rico. I’m actually a fan of Rivermaya! I live for that experimentation, that new collaboration I haven’t tried before. I wanted the score to be like a character itself, helping guide the audience through emotional highs and lows. Music is used sparsely in the film because I want to capture the real sounds of Manila while working on how silence was music as well. My sound designer, the brilliant Vincent Villa, captured this very well, creating music out of the raw sounds of the city.
Filmmaker: At some point, the character meets a child who knows a lot about her. There’s a sense that this character might be her unborn child. What does this departure from sociorealism, which the Philippines is known for, into something more speculative or even spiritual open the narrative up to?
Jadaone: I wanted this to be personal to Sunshine. We’re taking her perspective—this is her story, after all. Based on my interviews, the common denominator in these journeys was the troubled mind, how such big decisions stupefy and the sense of helplessness that follows to the point where the mind begins playing tricks. Sometimes, they talk to themselves. Sometimes, they talk to strangers. Sometimes, it’s imagined individuals. There are bangungots [nightmarish spectres], scary images in their minds. Those stories left an imprint on me. It’s something so unique to each of them and I wanted to capture that, if only for us to understand or have a glimpse into the experience and how difficult of a burden it must be to carry for them. Maybe that departure allows the narrative to explore deeper, more introspective themes—not only physical, moreso internal, so we enter more fully her subjectivity and her thought process of Sunshine. That way, the viewer can become a friend who holds her hand, not a foe who judges her unfairly.
