Look! Solenn Heussaff Enjoys Her New Film's World Premiere At Canada's Fantasia Film Festival
Montreal, Canada—Solenn Heussaff confidently walked the red carpet in a blue Sam Richelle number at the Fantasia Festival, the biggest genre film festival in North America that focuses on horror and fantasy screen gems, and gamely answered questions from an inquisitive panel.
The 34-year-old actress stars alongside Benjamin Alves in the Adolfo Alix Jr.-directed film Misterio Dela Noche where she plays the role of the Philippines' first manananggal (a flying witch-like, man-eating creature whose upper and lower halves have the terrifying ability to detach at the waist), one that she describes has been her most difficult role to date.
Based on the play Ang Unang Aswang by Rody Vera, the film zooms in on colonial Philippines, but does without familiar turn of the century sights like kalesas, capiz windows, men in beige linen suits, or fan-wielding women.
Instead, audiences are transported to thick, wild jungles where Solenn's manananggal character lives alongside fairies who can change their forms at will. Solenn barely has any speaking lines throughout the film and relies on facial expressions and other forms of non-verbal acting to communicate her character's thoughts and feelings, the challenge compounded by the fact that she bares it all for many of her scenes.
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"#MisterioDeLaNoche is to date the most challenging role ive had to play. Here it goes..... Ps: prosthetic everything haha wag kayo ma shookt. Mom and dad, dont watch hahaha," Solenn teased on Instagram a day before her big night in Montreal.
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Director Adolfo gave eager audiences a sneak peek of his latest horror flick's story with a lengthy post on Instagram that reads:
“'In the time of colonization and oppression, a dark tale will be born. Out of misery, rage and hypocrisy, darkness will feed on the beaming light. In a small village, an enchanted forest carries fear, as spirits live there. They protect the forest against evil lurkers. Many never came out.'”
"Thus opens this tale, on an ominous chant, of the Spanish-ruled Philippines of the 1900s: a time of tyranny, in which the Spanish clergy and the aristocracy went to great lengths to cover up their numerous and unspeakable misdeeds and crimes. A woman, raped and banished to the woods on a full moon’s night, sees her newborn child swallowed by animalistic shadows lurking in the foliage. Raised by the forest’s mysterious ghouls and demons—boars, wild cats and a many-eyed sage—the child grows. It experiences love, then heartbreak, and then fulfils the tale, changing into something larger-than-life, a mythical creature… a woman scorned."
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Misterio Dela Noche was well-received on both its screening dates on July 15 and 16, and even enjoyed the accomplishment of a sold-out audience.
The film was the lone Philippine entry at the annual film festival and will soon premiere in Manila.
Before Fantasia, Misterio Dela Noche was screened in May at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
Photos from @solenn @benxalves
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