If there’s any actress in the Philippine showbiz industry that’s consistently shown us range, it’s Jasmine Curtis-Smith.
She’s played an OFW’s daughter facing deportation in 2013’s Transit, the other girl named Pathy in a pseudo- love triangle in the 2017 rom-com I’m Drunk I Love You, a powerful nun in the 2019 horror Maledicto, and a leprosy patient in the 2019 historical drama Culion.
In her latest film, Jasmine takes on the thriller genre – and shows she isn’t afraid to take on sociopolitical themes in the process – as she stars in Dodo Dayao’s Midnight in a Perfect World.
The film is set in an almost-utopian Manila, where everything is clean and seemingly efficient, except that blackouts happen in random parts of the city after midnight, during which people who are caught outside their homes disappear without a trace – a clear allusion to the Martial Law era. In it, Jasmine plays a woman who, along with her friends, gets caught in a safehouse that barely feels safe as they ride out the blackout and wonder what lurks in the darkness outside.
The film is set to premiere for Filipino audiences on Upstream on January 29.
Ahead of the launch, Jasmine speaks to Rappler entertainment reporter Amanda Lago about what it’s like to tell a story that has a strong socio-political statement – and why she’s not shying away from doing so. She also shares how she deals with critics, how she feels when she’s watching herself in a film, and why the Filipino audience is so crucial to the local film industry.
Catch the conversation at 2:30 pm by bookmarking this page or heading over to fb.com/rapplerdotcom. – Rappler.com
