By Randy Renier I. Espinoza
Vilma Santos is a screen legend and the
country’s Star for All Seasons, whose career trajectory spans 50 years of
playing lead roles which earned her box-office and critical successes. To cast
her as an extra or bit player in a movie is almost unthinkable. Can she pass off
as a bit player and effectively evoke the nuances of the role? Well, Ekstra (The Bit Player), the actress’s
first foray into indie filmmaking, provides a more-than-adequate answer.
Helmed by acclaimed director Jeffrey Jeturian, Ekstra opens with scenes showing the character of Loida Malabanan (played by Vilma Santos) getting rejected for a house-help part for a soap opera production. The film officially starts when, one late night, she receives a booking for possible bit parts in another soap opera. She then prepares her costumes and things and, hours past midnight, with a co-extra friend in tow, heads for the meeting place for all the talents, from which a service van picks them up to transport them to the location shoot. Along the way, we get snippets, by way of humorous banters, of the talents’ struggles as industry workers, while the talent coordinator has to drop off along the highway two child talents, with their respective parents, who don’t fit the roles of young Piolo Pascual and Marian Rivera, the soap’s lead stars.
