LOS ANGELES, USA – A dinner in Beverly Hills that informally launched the Oscars campaign for Erik Matti’s On The Job 2: The Missing 8 as the Philippines’ bet to the Academy’s best international feature film race drew a wonderfully eclectic mix, from a Jesuit priest film producer to an actress who starred in a now iconic comedy.

The Missing 8 producers Ernest Escaler, Dondon Monteverde, and Joseph “Joe” Caliro, with Hollywood executive Fritz Friedman, hosted the intimate-sized (but what a power- and talent-packed group!) gathering at Mr. Chow, a Tinseltown institution since it opened in 1974.

The November 13 dinner also feted Tirso Cruz III, the new chair of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), who was in town to support The Missing 8’s bid for the Oscars international feature honors and nomination, both of which have been elusive for the country.

While the list of the official entries to the Oscars’ plum category, formerly known as best foreign language film, has yet to be announced, the Philippines has submitted Erik’s sequel to his 2013 film to the Academy. This year, for a change, instead of the Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP) solely choosing the country’s bet, a selection committee was formed and included reps from the Directors Guild of the Philippines Inc. (DGPI), FDCP, FAP and the Inter-Guild Alliance.

The deliberations were reportedly narrowed down to three films – The Missing 8, Lav Diaz’s When the Waves Are Gone, and Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die.

Erik’s film about a journalist who investigates the massacre of his colleagues, for which John Arcilla won the 2021 Venice Film Festival best actor Volpi Cup over the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog) and Oscar Isaac (The Card Counter) – a historic first for a Filipino actor in that festival on the Lido – ultimately got the selection committee’s nod.

As a side note, Martika’s 2022 Sundance Film Festival world cinema dramatic special jury award winner, Leonor Will Never Die, qualified as an official entry to the 2023 Golden Globes’ non-English language film derby.

Back to the dinner, Tirso sat at one of the three tables in Mr. Chow’s upstairs private dining room. The former matinee idol, in his brief remarks, expressed his commitment to help Philippine cinema and, in particular, The Missing 8’s drive to get that elusive Oscar.

With him were Tia Carrere, recently in Jo Koy’s Easter Sunday and other projects, but for many fans, she’s Cassandra in the cult classic, Wayne’s World; actor Dante Basco – speaking of Jo Koy, one time I heard the latter recalling with pride and joy seeing Dante as Rufio in Hook (“finally someone who looks like me in a movie!”); and Dean Devlin, producer of Independence Day and Godzilla, the Philippine-filmed series, Almost Paradise (on season 2), and The Deal, a film starring FilAm Sumalee Montano and now streaming on Hulu.

Also in this table was Father Eddie Siebert, a Jesuit priest who’s also a Hollywood producer – yes, you read that right; he’s known as “The Jesuit in Hollywood.”

As president of Loyola Productions, he is currently working on The Pope’s Exorcist, a drama chronicling real-life figure Father Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe) who was the Vatican’s chief exorcist and performed over 100,000 exorcisms in his lifetime. Franco Nero plays the Pope.

Father Eddie is the rector of the Jesuit community in LA’s Loyola Marymount University where he is also a senior lecturer in the Film and Television School.

The Missing 8 co-producer Ernest also graced this table along with another producer, Rick Dugdale, CEO of Enderby Entertainment and co-founder of Vuele, a platform for watching and collecting limited edition feature films and NFT (non-fungible token) content, and his wife, Jade Dugdale.

From another table, I made a toast to thank our gracious hosts and welcome to LA the visiting filmmakers, including Tirso, from the Philippines. Before this group of shakers and movers, I confessed that when I was a kid, I rooted for the Tirso-Nora Aunor (also known as Kuya Pip and Ate Guy) love team.

Yes, one time, my relatives and I got soaking wet when heavy rains poured during a Manila Film Festival parade, but did we mind? No, because we caught a glimpse of Kuya Pip and Ate Guy on a float.

“That reference aged me,” Kuya Pip laughingly told me later when he walked over to our table to chat. I asked him, “Where is Maria Leonora Theresa now?” Sorry, you have to be a Pip-Guy fanatic to know that. Tirso deadpanned, “She’s now a nurse here in the States.”

In our group were Erik, who told us that he and his group are proceeding to New York to attend the November 21 International Emmy Awards where The Missing 8 is nominated for best TV movie or miniseries; my wife, GMA 7’s Janet Nepales; and our journalist colleagues, ABS-CBN’s Yong Chavez and Asel Sherniyazova, who is also the cofounder of the Asian World Film Festival.

Also with us were actor Dionysio “Dion” Basco, whose “orgasmic” food scene with Crystal Kwon was the funniest in the hit, The Fabulous Filipino Brothers, directed by Dante; and Deborah Kolar and Jan Kean, who are spearheading The Missing 8’s Oscar campaign.

Interesting side note about Deborah – she is the daughter of the late Robert Shaw, 1967 Oscar and Golden Globe best supporting actor nominee for his portrayal of King Henry III in Fred Zinnemann’s A Man for All Seasons. The legendary actor’s other credits include Jaws, The Sting, and From Russia with Love.

I still remember Matt Fagerholm’s 2019 interview piece with Deborah on rogertebert.com about the making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. I love this quote from Deborah, who has previously campaigned for several Philippine Oscar bets with Jan, about her dad who liked to tinker with scripts:

“Less was more with my father in terms of the screenplay. He was often editing things like that because he worked with Harold Pinter and was a great fan of his. Peter Benchley (Jaws cowriter), bless his heart, obviously created the whole thing but dad put his stamp on it and rewrote a lot of his speeches.”

“I have a copy of the script, and you can see how my father crossed out the original story of the Indianapolis (Robert’s memorable speech in Jaws) and rewrote it, along with a couple of other things, too. Since my father was a writer, he did this on other pictures as well, such as Joseph Losey’s Figures in a Landscape.”

“I delighted in telling Spielberg that I have the Jaws script. When he told me that he wanted it, I said, ‘But it’s a family heirloom!’”

Fritz, one of the top Fil-Am executives in Hollywood – he is the president of The Fritz Friedman Co., a marketing and production company, and was senior vice president of worldwide publicity at Sony Pictures – shared a table with entertainment producers Joseph “Joe” Caliro (Globe Studios), who spoke about his love for the Philippines (where the American, married to a Filipina, is based), Birthe Lauchengco, and Ted Benito.

Also in this group were Variety’s senior artisans editor, Filipina-British Jazz Tangcay; Tirso’s wife, Erlinda “Lynn” Ynchausti Cruz; actor Darion Basco; Asian Journal publisher Cora Oriel; and Universal Pictures’ production technology senior director Sherwin Roque. We missed one more Basco brother, Derek.

This guest list and the fun banter at the dinner were fitting for Mr. Chow, the second in the restaurant chain founded in 1968 in London (The Beatles, Marlene Dietrich, and Mick Jagger were regulars) by Michael Chow, who is also an artist, interior designer, and former actor.

Now 83, the Shanghai-born, London-raised Michael is on wife number four: former Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, the late model and jewelry designer Tina Chow, Eva Chun Chow, and Vanessa Rano.

When Mr. Chow opened in Beverly Hills, Olivia de Havilland, Eartha Kitt, and Clint Eastwood were reported to be among the first guests. In recent years, diners have ranged from Madonna, George Clooney, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez, to Robert de Niro.

It has been written that when Gwyneth Paltrow bagged her 1999 best actress Oscar for John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love, she celebrated at Mr. Chow with mom Blythe Danner and family. May a similar Oscar luck bless Erik Matti and his On the Job 2: The Missing 8 film! – Rappler.com