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MANILA -- “This movie requires nudity. Are you ready for it?”

Those were the on-point questions that director Erik Matti immediately asked all the actors who heeded the call for auditions to his steamy romance-drama, “A Girl and A Guy,” the first offering of Upstream Originals streaming starting June 24.

“Generally, we knew we wanted an ensemble movie, guided by ‘A Girl and A Guy,’” Matti told ABS-CBN News. “The first requirement I had, I wanted everyone to look different from each other.

“If it’s a cross section of girls, what kind of a girl? Sultry, nice-looking, matapang ang mukha, charming, supladita. I did the same thing in choosing the guys.”

Matti went through a long audition process, in batches of men and women. “I think I’ve gotten old and I didn’t want to deal with, ang haba na ng latag mo and then you end up with someone saying ‘no.’

“There were some actors who readily asked, ‘What can be seen, Direk? What can the audience see?’ Then I tell them, ‘You just have to leave it up to me.’ I don’t want to go in a set and then when I started blocking, ‘Ay, dapat pala hindi ko makita ang puwet niya. Paano kaya ito? Dapat pala nakahiga na lang siya.’

“I don’t want to get into a situation where I have to adjust what I had in mind in favor of what was pre-approved by someone else. By the manager, the actor, the studio that enlisted the actor. I wanted to be clear on that.”

After the auditions, Matti and his team went into assigning characters for the actors. In the beginning, the director saw his actors playing two or three roles until he ended up with a good mix.

Nudity, however, is nothing new for Matti. In his directorial debut, “Scorpio Nights 2” (1999), starring Joyce Jimenez, Matti bravely dealt with nudity.

His other films that starred Rica Peralejo in “Dos Ekis” (2001) and Sunshine Cruz in “Ekis: Wang Tatakas” (1999) also dealt with sensitive and sensual scenes.

“I had a lot of movies where there was nudity,” Matti acknowledged. “The kind of tension, when you get to the set, was really, really hard. More than somebody jumping off the roof of a seven-storey building, mas mahirap to start a sex scene kapag ikaw ang director.

“There are a lot of things to think about. You want people to be in their right minds. Ayaw mong ma-tense ang mga tao or ma-conscious. In ‘A Girl and A Guy,’ I’m surprised with how ready the cast is with the movie, with what’s required from them.”

“I’ve also wanted for movies in general in the Philippines, to be more casual about showing skin, showing nudity.

“Parang naiwan na tayo sa dark ages. Parang naging tita na lahat ng tao. Makakita ng cleavage, bawal na. Hindi na ‘yun uso ngayon. I think we need to let go of the stigma of people taking off their clothes.”

Thankfully, “A Girl and A Guy” liberated its director, in a way. “Not just because I felt there were no rules in making the movie,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do a movie na hindi ko iisipin na kaliwang boobs lang ba ang lumabas or kalahaing puwet lang ba ang nakita?

“If it’s needed in the story, why can’t we show anything? Yes, rather ride on the fact na marami siyang bold, because there really is a lot, I think you’ll be surprised to see, when you see the movie, how important it is all throughout the movie, to be as carefree as possible with the way we look at the new generation, which is the cast.”

Matti was pleased with how his cast bonded well on the set while filming. “Even if most of them didn’t really know each other from the start. I’m glad that they bonded because it shows in the movie.

“I wanted to get in a situation where I get to work and it’s just about work. Trabaho lang. There’s nudity, okay, ‘Take off your clothes.’ Put towels on them. Let’s get ready. I’m going to block it. This is how this scene is going to be done. Now, let’s take it.

“Ang laking bagay na hindi ka nate-tense or na-excuse me para lang maging kumportable lahat.”

Admittedly, Matti had a lot of learnings completing “A Girl and A Guy,” as he commended the cast and production crew of his latest film project.

“Ganito pala ka-relaxed kung everyone is just there to do the job,” he said. “When you have actors who are ready and committed to their roles, ang laking bagay na nagta-trabaho lang kayo together.

“You get more suggestions from them. ‘They will ask you, What do you want me to do, Direk?’ Because everyone is in a good place right before the cameras rolled.”

“A Girl and A Guy” is not soft porn, Matti clarified. “They cannot describe it until they see it. I think they owe it to the actors. We took a long, long thought on the kind of nudity that we have in the movie and how matter of fact the whole thing is.

“Nothing is gratuitous. In the me-too movement now, we’re quite clear that we’re not just going to show the male gaze or the female body only. We will do it across the board to be fair to everyone

“Before this, alam natin how hard it is to do that. Here, we were liberated. We did what had to be done based on the script, whether it’s a male or a female that goes into it.”

Matti is ready for the negative comments and the backlash his latest film will meet. “I never did a movie that wasn’t polarizing,” he pointed out. “Some people didn’t like the violence of ‘Buy Bust.’ Some found my other movies that they didn’t like.

“I’m hoping that they all give ‘A Girl and A Guy’ a chance. That they see it for what it tries to talk about. The present situation. We’re pretty proud of this.”

In today’s Generation Z, one has to learn and understand the meaning of being “fluid.” Because these days, millennials don’t look at gender anymore.

Matti’s “A Girl and A Guy” deals with being fluid. “In one part of the movie, you’re going to see how they deal with such an experiment,” Matti said. “Maybe I’m for a partner with the same sex that I have or maybe I’m with the opposite gender. That was also discussed.”

Interestingly, the female stars of the film, Candace Ramos and Sarah Holmes, agreed being fluid as gender is always an endless debate. “With the exploration is education, development on gender studies, as well,” said Ramos.

“I’m also constantly exploring and experimenting what I really want,” offered Holmes.

In the past, Matti always delivered films with social relevance, like “On The Job,” “Honor Thy Father,” “Buy Bust.” “A Girl and A Guy” showcases what this generation has become, featuring the brightest young actors who exhibited exemplary commitment to their craft. Playing the leads are Alexa Miro as Fiona and Rob Gomez as Raf.

He is an introvert who tries to figure out things for himself. He’s very questioning about his existence. Every relationship, he gets lost in the process. Yet, he learns.

Meanwhile, she’s a very charming go-getter, goal-getter, aspiring writer and director who knows what she wants.

“A Girl and A Guy” was filmed in Baguio, when the lockdown eased up. They got permits for several towns where they could shoot in. The kind of testing the cast and crew had to go through was a major consideration for the filming.

“We made use of Baguio people in the crowd scenes and we tested all of them,” Matti disclosed. “We had a party scene, office scenes. Lahat ‘yun entailed PCR [polymerase chain reaction] tests for everybody.”

Creatively, while shooting the movie, Matti was groping in the dark to give a full picture of the kind of generation that he was working with.

“I think they’re the cross-section of the generation that I wanted to talk about in the film,” he said. “I had all these ideas based on the research that I made, but on the set, I had to rely on them because I needed a more real reaction to certain situations that I just wanted to get out of my actors applying it to their characters. ‘Yun ang pinakamahirap.

“'Buy Bust,’ I know how a drug dealer kills a policeman or how a policeman goes into a raid. ‘On The Job,’ alam ko na how killers coming out of prison. I know how they would react. I know when they would get angry.

“Surprisingly, in ‘A Girl and A Guy,’ the tough part is understanding the psychology of this generation. Ang laki ng hiningi ko sa actors on asking them to hand-hold me in how I would depict each of their characters. Sobrang ganda ng nuance. I love it.”

Matti wrote the script for “A Girl and a Guy” in June 2019. “Hindi ko naman naisip talaga that this movie will eventually be produced,” he said. “I just wanted to put it on paper ‘yung gusto kong sabihin.”

Getting inspiration from his two daughters to work on the script proved to be helpful for Matti. Nik Makino’s “Neneng B,” was even suggested to be used as music.

“I was looking at my two daughters and I couldn’t understand both of them. The generation now exists in a totally different world than what we know. You’ll see it in the movie, with how comfortable everyone is physically.

“When I wrote this in June or July 2019, we went up to Mindoro. Of course, the script I was talking about was where I wrote down all my thoughts, then passed it on to a real writer [Anj Pessumal].

“After that, no one was really interested. I was finishing ‘On The Job 2,’ although hindi ko pa naman kailangan ‘yun. I was getting ready for the HBO movie. Then we went back to work in July last year.

“Because of Upstream.ph, we started thinking, what can we do to launch the Upstream Original. In passing, I mentioned about the script I wrote.”

The tough part about “A Girl and A Guy” is that it’s an ensemble piece. “With this pandemic, hindi siya isang bahay, dalawang tao,” Matti pointed out. “There are a lot of places, a lot of characters. Everyone moves in an out in each other’s life. So this is difficult to make during the pandemic.

“The script was written for Manila and we had to do a rewrite, where it involves a provincial town. The setting was in Baguio, but we didn’t name it as Baguio. At the same time, I said it would be dishonest if we don’t include the pandemic in the story.

“So we did a major rewrite in the middle part of the movie, when the pandemic happened. That made the whole movie even better. Primarily because the pandemic was from the point of view of the Gen Z, who is quite a restless generation. It gave the script a lot more nuance. Napaganda pa.”

“A Girl and A Guy,” insisted Matti, is not a rom-com. “I wanted to explore that side of the younger set of people whom I haven’t explored yet. In terms of movies, it’s also a way to show everyone what can be done other than boy meets girl, girl meets boy, the parents disapprove. They part ways. They see each other one year later.

“We have a lot of backward thinking that we need to unwind about the kind of relationship movies that we’re making. I’m hoping there’s another side to it that we can present. We might gravitate towards that insight as something real and they can identify with.”
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