With Spirit-nominated 'Leonor Will Never Die,' Martika Ramirez Escobar pays homage to macho Filipino actioners — with inspiration from her grandmother.
Writer-director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s debut feature ‘Leonor Will Never Die’ celebrates the universal ridiculousness of 1970s and ‘80s exploitation films.
Martika Ramirez Escobar makes her feature debut with “Leonor Will Never Die,” in limited release now. The film won a special jury prize at Sundance and is nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for best international feature.The idea of being pulled beyond the veil into a film is particularly magical for cinephiles. What were some of the movies that informed you as you wrote “Leonor”?
Many scenes in the film are based on real life, from the electricity [bill going unpaid] to having a son who passed away. I think, like Leonor, my grandma doesn’t like talking about these things. She’d rather make noise to not hear the things she doesn’t want to hear. I think she liked [the film]. She saw that I was obsessed with making it for the past half-decade, and she was happy it finally was released [to] the world.
“Leonor Will Never Die” director Martika Ramirez Escobar photographed at the Metrograph theater in New York. The film is now playing in select theaters. How did you conceive the look and texture of the action film within the film, replicating hallmarks of ’70s and ’80s action cinema, and convey those textures to your crew?
We’re all around the same age, our key staff, or close to it. So we are familiar with the same things. We can recall the bad zooms, the bad dolly shots, the multiple cameras and the stunts. It was easy for us to imagine the world we were trying to create. We were aligned with that. We didn’t even watch films together. It’s more like we just trusted that they knew what they were doing.
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