'Call Me Mother' a 'deeply personal' film for director Jun Lana

Director Jun Robles Lana is known for his genre versatility.

- By JANUAR JUNIOR AGUJA

Across his filmography, he has delivered hit comedies like “Die Beautiful” and “And the Breadwinner Is...” alongside acclaimed dramas such as “Barber’s Tales” and “About Us But Not About Us.”His two upcoming films continue this streak, with this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) entry, “Call Me Mother,” marking Lana’s second collaboration with Vice Ganda, while he also helms Hilda Koronel’s comeback film “Sisa,” scheduled for March 2026.

Despite working across genres and catering to different markets, what unites Lana’s body of work is his commitment to telling his stories for a Filipino audience.

“I don’t recalibrate my aesthetic or what I think is good storytelling every time I make a movie for a studio, like let’s just say Star Cinema or OctoberTrain Films or my production company IdeaFirst. I just naturally switch. It’s like an on-and-off switch,” he told The FREEMAN in an online interview.

A major turning point in his career came with his sixth feature-length film, “Bwakaw,” released in 2012, which starred the late Eddie Garcia as Rene, an elderly gay man who takes care of a stray dog. The film marked the moment Robles stopped worrying about how others might receive his work and instead focused on the stories he wanted to tell.

He recalled, “I got a text from my cinematographer Carlo Mendoza asking me for an update on the film, and I became vulnerable at that moment because I responded that I don’t know how the audience will react to this movie, but I do know that I love the movie we just made, and that’s the most important thing.”

Lana credits his business partner at IdeaFirst and ex-husband Perci Intalan for supporting his creative freedom.