Director Petersen Vargas Talks Collaborating With DonBelle in Romance Flick ‘An Inconvenient Love’

In a year chock-full of agonizing things — pandemic deaths, rising prices, Halloween tragedies, disastrous typhoons, and a circus-like election that produced sore winners — it’s hard not to crave something that would enliven our spirits. Thankfully, Star Cinema is making a buzzy return to the big screen, and they’re betting on “An Inconvenient Love” to wrap Filipinos in a warm hug this Yuletide season.

Top-billed by this generation’s hottest pair Donny Pangilinan and Belle Mariano (aka DonBelle), the forthcoming romantic-comedy movie revolves around two Gen Z hustlers who dive into a love affair bound by a contract. Its director? No less than Petersen Vargas, a multihyphenate award-winning visionary whose dazzling works have graced the Cinemalaya Film Festival, Myx Music Awards, Cinema One Originals, and Cannes Film Festival, just to name a few.

Ahead of the film’s release this November, Kapampangan-born director Petersen Vargas sat down with The Beat Asia to chat about the joy of helming Star Cinema’s comeback movie and why it’s Donny Pangilinan and Belle Mariano’s most innovative project yet.

Becoming Petersen

With nothing but a pursuit of showcasing his regional stories to a wider audience, Petersen created his first short film “Lisyun Qng Geografia” while still a student at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. “It was my first film that went into a major festival. I always consider it my favorite first,” he told The Beat Asia in early October. The gut-wrenching flick, which explored young queer love in a regional setting, won him the coveted Best Director award at the 11th Cinemalaya Film Festival.

“As a Leo, I was always looking for something that would make me stand out. That’s when I discovered my preference in making films with a provincial backdrop,” Petersen said. In 2016, he shot his debut feature “2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten,” which tackled the story of teenage boys living in post-lahar Pampanga. It bagged the Best Picture prize at the 12th Cinema One Originals festival.

Adding another evocative masterpiece to his discography, the queer filmmaker directed Black Sheep Productions' first Boys Love (BL) web series “Hello Stranger” in 2020. Starring Kapamilya heartthrobs JC Alcantara and Tony Labrusca, the show revolutionized the “new normal” way of storytelling and carved the path for more LGBTQIA+ content to flourish. “It’s a project that we literally invented from scratch because it was shot during the height of the pandemic,” Petersen said.

In the same year, his fringe-themed brainchild “Some Nights I Feel Like Walking” — currently in development — was handpicked to be part of the Cinéfondation's Atelier, a special program for young filmmakers under the auspices of the Cannes Film Festival.

Now, at the venerable age of 30, Petersen is set to release one of the most important films of his career — “An Inconvenient Love,” a Star Cinema motion picture with phenomenal loveteam DonBelle as leads.

The Making of ‘An Inconvenient Love’

“The movie is about... Oh my God! Hala, hindi pa pala ako ready mag-promote!” Petersen uttered laughingly. (The movie is about... Oh my God! Wow, I’m not yet ready to promote!) 

“In my own words, it’s a love story between two young people who entered a relationship with an expiration date. That’s how I pitched it as an idea,” he explained when asked about the gist of the flick.

A coming-of-age feature born out of Petersen’s love for rom-com movies, “An Inconvenient Love” follows the out-of-the-box love story of convenience store clerk Ayef (Belle Mariano) and plant shop owner Manny (Donny Pangilinan). This is a complete 180-degree turnaround from what the top-trending pair did in the iWantTFC series “He’s Into Her” and the Netflix film “Love is Color Blind,” both of which focused on the journey of adolescence.

For Petersen, it was DonBelle’s natural chemistry and exemplary work ethic that made him fall in love with the power duo. “You hear it often that many actors nowadays are collaborative, but with DonBelle, they take extra steps to discover their characters together. As a director, that’s a big plus for me,” he revealed. 

“I requested a lot of preparations and did specific workshops for their respective characters. We even immersed in an actual convenience store along Tomas Morato,” he added.

As for what cinema buffs can look forward to, Petersen said that the artistry they’ll witness in the flick is the outcome of DonBelle’s tenacity and hard work. “The characters are not just a result of my direction. It’s one thing to follow my instructions, but they also have their vision and that’s what made the experience better.”

While there is pressure to drop a Star Cinema picture nearly three years since the pandemic shuttered the movie industry, Petersen said it's “the perfect project to release at these inconvenient times.”

“An Inconvenient Love” premieres on Nov. 23 in theaters nationwide. The Star Cinema production will also hit cinemas in 20 countries worldwide including the U.S., Guam, Australia, and New Zealand. For tickets, visit www.smtickets.com.