This year for our "thankful for" column I'm interviewing the team (well, the non-shy ones) so you can get to know them better and so I can express my sincere gratitude that they're showcased here on the site. Today, JUAN CARLOS OJANO.
Juan Carlos lives in the Philippines and began writing for The Film Experience in mid 2020. We were all trapped inside due to the COVID-19 pandemic at the time. Human connection was scarce so thank the cinematic gods for zoom sessions with Team Experience! Juan Carlos shares our collective TFE passion for actresses + Best International Feature Film. He put the latter into action creating the podcast "One Inch Barrier" where he reviews each year of that competition. He got personal with a Call Me By Your Name piece, revisited Spotlight, wrote numerous odes to The Handmaid's Tale,and just launched a biweekly series on female directors called "Through Her Lens" that I really hope you will obsess over. I'm already wondering which female directors he'll be looking at from the 00s and earlier when they were less frequently honored and discussed.
HERE'S OUR SHORT INTERVIEW...
When did you first fall in love with the movies?
I was seven years old when I urged my aunt to bring me to see Mano Po. My cousin, like other little children, opted for a fantasy-comedy. Meanwhile, I was the weird kid who opted for the family crime drama about government corruption, drugs, and kidnapping. It was the first time I fell in love with films. Not just watching, but I knew I wanted to make films, too. I just didn't know how.
Which current star do you feel truly grateful for?
Elisabeth Moss. For having a career that is diverse and potent both in film and in television, for never sleepwalking in any role she's doing, for a face that is unbelievably expressive, for her ongoing ubiquity, and for the gift of being an actor and a first-time director in the fourth season of The Handmaid's Tale. Season 4 gave me so much life.
Tis this season to be thankful. What wouldn't you have wanted to live without this past year?
- Adele's "Easy on Me". She's back. It's a distinct form of catharsis.
- Anthony Hopkins in The Father and Frances McDormand in Nomadland. To witness two of the best living actors do their best work is beyond me.
- Playing Adam Taylor's "Stepping Off the Boat" on my way to getting my first shot.
- Catching I Carry You With Me through a virtual screener. It filled my heart.
- Watching Ran and Come and See (both 1985) on the same day. Mind officially blown.
- Binging Ted Lasso, Hacks, and The Flight Attendant within a single week. I needed the laughs (I was stressed out).
- Falling in love with Sophia Loren via A Special Day, Sunflower, Marriage Italian Style, and Yesterday Today and Tomorrow.
- Rewatching The Kingmaker and my anger about Philippine politics being reignited again. Never again to the Marcoses!
Choose your favourites!
If you were to magically win an Oscar, who would you thank in your acceptance speech?
My mom, for believing in me even when I stopped believing in myself.
You're throwing a Thanksgiving dinner feast. You can invite 5 movie characters. Go!
Sharon Rivers (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Oda Mae Brown (Ghost)
Johnny Saxby (God's Own Country)
Frank Bledsoe (Uncle Frank)
...and Jacob Yi (Minari)
You can follow Juan Carlos on Twitter , Letterboxd and you should listen to his podcast "One Inch Barrier" . If you follow him on Instagram you'll be thinking pink like Kay Thompson or Mean Girls. On Wednesdays he wears pink and he's currently doing valiant volunteer work at home fighting for The Pink Movement as well as packaging and distributing pink face masks. (Unfortunately the Phillipines have been hard hit this fall with new COVID cases.)