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How Lav Diaz puts the little, green, clean town of Sampaloc, Quezon on the world cinema map
Lav Diaz is a globe-trotting auteur, shooting scenes here and there, attending world premieres for his films, serving as member of festival juries, giving lectures, some once-in-a-blue moon workshops or simply just receiving awards.
Whenever he’s in the Philippines, if he’s not staying in Metro Manila to attend meetings and post-production works that require him to be in the big city, he would travel in the countryside, stay for a month or two where there are rivers, lakes, hills, mountains, thick green forests, and ideally, where it rains almost every day. These are key elements in the settings for his films.
Until in recent years, when he found Sampaloc, a quaint, small peaceful town in Quezon province just three hours away from Metro Manila.
It looks like he found home.
“It’s already my fourth year here. I started shooting in 2022, the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, for ‘Ang Kawalan ng Kawalan.’ It’s about the TB outbreak during the Commonwealth period and we had actors from Tanghalang Pilipino, our co-producer. The film is still in post- production. We shot again in 2023 for ‘Phantosmia,’ where we also had actors from TP,” he told GMA News Online when we visited him at his homebase in Sampaloc.
“Then last year, 2024, we shot some scenes for ‘Magellan,’ the original nine-hour long film which is a different film now. But that’s another story. Anyway, we brought here Gael Garcia Bernal and some Portuguese actors. Gael, who may have appeared in some Hollywood films, was virtually unknown here. He was roaming around, eating pansit, his favorite meal in the carinderia, or playing basketball,” Diaz said, giggling.
Tourism officers of Sampaloc shared to GMA News Online it was Gael’s equally handsome brother, Darío Yazbek Bernal, who caught the attention of the kids playing in the streets when the actors would take a leisurely walk in the town, pointing to the bearded Dario and calling him, “Jesus Christ! Si Jesus Christ, nabuhay o!”
Gael and Darío, who both grew long beard and moustache for their roles in “Magellan,” would just laugh with the kids and sometimes, pretend they’re the alluded Biblical figures.
Diaz discovered the beauty of Sampaloc when he and his crew had a problem with a town in Cavite, their first choice of location for “Ang Kawalan.”
“I first came to know of Sampaloc because way, way back in 2014, we shot a river scene here for ‘Mula Sa Kung Ano ang Noon (From What Is Before)’ though at the time, we haven’t explored the whole town" Diaz said.
He asked his art director, Allen Alzola, a native resident of Sampaloc, to take him further up in the hills and the deepest forests in the farthest barangays. To make a long story short, Diaz fell in love with the place. It was “Lav at second sight.”
“Kaya noong finally mag-so-shoot na kami for ‘Ang Kawalan’ sabi ko kay Allen, ikaw naman, kung saan saan pa tayo nagpunta, ang ganda ganda pala ng lugar nyo,” he said.
After shooting three films consecutively since 2022, Diaz has, indeed, fallen in love with the green and clean town that he decided to buy a piece of land.
During our interview at his apartment’s front yard, Diaz pointed to GMA News Online the hills that can be seen from our vantage. “It’s just a small piece of land up there. Gagawin ko, magtatayo ako ng bodega doon. Parang production house. Problema kasi namin, pagkatapos ng shoot, ‘di namin alam kung saan ilalagay ‘yung mga gamit. ‘Yung maliit kong unit sa Marikina, punong puno na rin. May nire-rentahan kaming isang bahay dyan, punong puno na rin. Para praktikal, bumili ako ng isang maliit na lote dyan sa bundok. Papagaw-an ng structure pag nagkapera. Bitin sa pera,” he said.
“Dito mula Sampaloc hanggang Lucban malamig, at pinaka malamig dyan sa taas, sa nakuha kong lupa,” he added.
The town’s mayor, Nikko Devanadera, is very supportive of Diaz and his team. “We thought the Lav team, as we call them, would only stay when they’re shooting films but when I learned that direk Lav bought a piece of land and has plans of permanently being based here, I told myself, 'naku, seryosohan na ‘to.' We were very happy because he chose Sampaloc,” he said.
The four-hour long “Phantosmia,” which was shot in Sampaloc “99%” was the featured film on the fourth and final day of “Sine Sampaloc Film Festival” held from December 11 to 14, at Sampaloc Municipal Park, organized by the local government in cooperation with the Cinemalaya Foundation and the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Film, Broadcast Arts and New Media Division, under its Lakbay Sine program.
The four-day event had film appreciation workshops and screenings for elementary and high- school students conducted by acclaimed Kapuso director and screenwriter Zig Dulay (“Maria Clara at Ibarra,” “Widows’ War,” “My Guardian Alien,” “Green Bones”) and “laking-Quezon” filmmaker Lemuel Lorca, who hails from nearby town of Mauban.
There were free film screenings every night attended by Sampalukins, young and old. There were even some film enthusiasts who came from as far as Atimonan, Quezon, which is an hour-and-a-half away by commuting from Sampaloc.
Chris Millado, festival director of Cinemalaya, said it’s the first of its kind for the Sampalukins and it’s a groundbreaking endeavor to have the local government’s support in showing films that were once only accessible to viewers in Metro Manila but are now being enjoyed by common folks in the provinces, especially the young students. It is in line with the CCP’s goal to bring the arts to the people.
Diaz is shooting his fourth film set in Sampaloc, the title and story of which can’t yet be revealed. What GMA News Online learned is that among the cast members are veteran “Lav collaborator” Bart Guingona and Sri Arjhay Babon, the Filipino theater actor who played Enrique in “Magellan” and the callous brother of Janine Gutierrez’s character in “Phantosmia.”
Like in Diaz’s previous three films, it will also employ Sampalukins as extras and crew members.
Diaz, who we may now call the Shaman of Sampaloc, also celebrated his 67th birthday on
December 30. Good health and cheers to a fruitful 2026, direk! — LA, GMA Integrated News
