Alessandra de Rossi’s one-shot test puts veterans on edge
In 2018, an idea for a movie struck Alessandra de Rossi: A dysfunctional family going at it at the dinner table, digging up each other’s sordid pasts. It would be a dark comedy featuring heavyweight dramatic thespians. And the cincher, she says, is that the entire story must unfold in just one day using one long continuous shot.
It was a dream project—an ambitious one, she must admit. But when the time came to map out the execution, she realized that her idea might not only be ambitious, but actually quite impossible. At least that’s how it felt at that time. So, she scrapped it and forgot about it.
But seven years later—with the creative guidance of the right collaborators, technical director Rico Gutierrez and co-writer Carlo Enciso Catu—De Rossi’s vision finally materialized, with her directing and acting in it at the same time.
Star-studded ensemble
Titled “Everyone Knows Every Juan,” the film follows the estranged Sevilla siblings as they gather and discuss inheritance in their ancestral house, following the first death anniversary of their mother, Juaning (Liza Lorena).
Tupe (Edu Manzano) arrives in a camper van, his face frozen with Botox. The school dropout Josie (Ruby Ruiz) shows up in a tricycle, broke and unable to pay the fare. The chill Ramil (Ronnie Lazaro) walks in straight from a construction shift, all filthy and hungry. The aspiring politician Rose (Gina Alajar) pulls up in her sleek red car. The alcoholic, frustrated rock artist Roel (Joel Torre), who welcomes everyone with the wail of his electric guitar. And finally, there’s Raquel (De Rossi), who sacrificed her dreams of becoming a lawyer—and her relationship with her lover, Alfred (JM de Guzman)—to take care of her ailing mother.
They all harbor secrets that can ruin their already-strained relationships. And all hell breaks loose when they discover that Rose had their mother’s body exhumed for an autopsy. Fueling the chaos are Anna (Angeli Bayani), the caretaker, and a troubled former patient who fled a mental facility, and Jacob (Kelvin Miranda), the gardener who unexpectedly claims a stake in the ancestral house.
Precise choreography
Now, if this all sounds so riotously complicated, that’s because it is—exactly why De Rossi needed actors of such caliber. Since she intended to shoot the entire movie in one continuous take, the cast might as well have been performing a stage play in front of the camera. They had to deliver long scenes with barely any breathing room. Blocking, spacing, and movements—not only among the actors, but also the technical crew—were non-negotiables.
With every detail choreographed to precision, one slip-up can undo all their progress. In fact, it took at least three passes to get everything down pat. “A glaring error can set off a domino effect, leaving the others unsure of how to react,” De Rossi tells Lifestyle Inquirer. “Everybody has to be in sync—the actors, the cameramen, all the other workers on the set.”
The cast had the benefit of having stand-ins as references in rehearsals, but once the camera started rolling, the pressure was all on them. “It was like doing theater, but on film,” Manzano says. “The scenes move from one place to the next, and we have to be cognizant of each other’s actions and spaces. You have to memorize where the audiomen and cameras are to ensure you can give the right expressions from the right angles.”
Manzano says a lot of seasoned actors like himself have already honed their own methods for accessing emotions before a scene. They didn’t have that luxury this time around. “You have to know your lines. You can’t do ad-libs. Every line has to be delivered at a specific cue and place. The emotion has to come at the exact moment with no setup and prep,” he says.
Given Alajar’s stature as an actress and director, she’s one of the last cast members you would expect to get nervous. But she did—no thanks to her not-so-sharp memory as a senior, she jokes. She was hoping for at least a month to memorize her lines but got only two days.
“I was scared!” Alajar admits. “I was hoping for a month to memorize my lines, but we got only two days. We were all cramming in our tent.”
Working behind the scenes
In the end, De Rossi didn’t quite pull everything off in one take; they had to do it in two since she wanted a day-to-night transition, which wouldn’t have been possible without waiting. That doesn’t make the feat any less impressive. “It really is a bold and creative concept,” she points out.
She’s proud and grateful but also extremely relieved. After all, she didn’t originally intend to direct the movie in the first place. It’s just that, as a writer, she finds it difficult letting go of her own concepts and leaving them in someone else’s hands. “It’s inevitable that it will be interpreted very differently from how you imagine it,” she points out.
“When I know the story, no matter how much it’s twisted, I might as well do it,” adds the three-time Gawad Urian and two-time FAMAS awardee.
“Everyone Knows” (Viva Films), which opens in cinemas on Oct. 22, is De Rossi’s second directorial project after “My Amanda” in 2021. And now that she has slowed down and grown more selective with her projects—she no longer accepts kontrabida roles and is very discerning when it comes to soap operas—working behind the scenes feels like a natural progression after nearly three decades in showbiz.
“I’m giving myself only three more years as an actress because I’m starting to see all the lines on my face on camera!” the 41-year-old actress says, laughing.
But turning serious, De Rossi shares that she hopes to keep writing scripts—and maybe even work as an acting coach in the future. “I have been an actress for so long already,” she says. “It’s impossible for me not to be drawn to what goes on behind the scenes.”
