John Lloyd Cruz Wins Best Actor at Swiss Film Festival

(SPOT.ph) John Lloyd Cruz has done it. The actor can finally say, “You had me at my best,” on the international stage. Cruz snagged the Boccalino d’Oro (Golden Jug Award) for best actor at the 76th Locarno Film Festival (LFF), marking the first time Cruz has received the best actor award outside of the Philippines.

Also read: 10 Most Remarkable John Lloyd Cruz Characters

John Lloyd Cruz Wins Best Actor at 76th Locarno Film Festival

Cruz was awarded for his performance in the Lav Diaz film Essential Truths of the Lake, wherein he portrays the respectable police officer Lt. Hermes Papauran, who continues to try and solve a 15-year-old murder case in the middle of a literal "ash-laden landscape" and the political landscape of President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial war on drugs.

Interestingly, the first and last time a Filipino won a Boccalini D‘Oro award at the Locarno Film Festival was also for another Lav Diaz film. In 2014, Hazel Orencio won the award for Best Actress for Diaz’ whopping five-and-a-half-hour film Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon at the at the 67th Locarno Film Festival.

Despite being a co-production between the Philippines, France, Portugal, Singapore, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, there’s no Philippine release date slated for Essential Truths of the Lake. You can expect the 213-minute-long feature to tour around the festival circuit before having limited screenings in Manila. Check out a clip from Cineuropa below. 

Also read: John Lloyd Cruz Is the "Ugliest of All the Indios" in This Offbeat Mini-Series

John Lloyd Cruz talks about his shift in roles

"I used to be," Cruz cheekily said during a Q&A session at the film fest about whether he's a big star in the Philippines. "I had to dim my light to accommodate moral struggles," he continues with a chuckle.

"But really, from my end, yeah maybe: we have this trend, you're popular on TV so you get to be popular also in movies, but after two decades of doing the same thing over and over, twenty years of income driven engagements," he continues, trailing off. He says it eventually becomes hard to say "no" to similar opportunities. 

Yet it seems through working with the auteur, he was able to unlearn what the industry had instilled. He had earlier explained that he took the role for this film because of an "attachment to the director," not necessarily just the character. "It's always an experience, not just the character, the whole thing. We're all filmmakers on the set. You get to have that privilege, get to be part of his intention." He sees it as answering to his "duty" whenever Diaz calls. 

The shift has not been smooth, the actor admits. Their are "existing struggles in the context of me with my family; most of them don't really understand my choices."

"Me trying to explain to my parents in their 70s, it's very difficult, and imagine explaining it to all the Filipinos, what we're trying to do here," he says.

"But Direct Lav, also, unkowingly for sure, teaches us how to be patient with sharing your knowledge, giving them time to process it or wait for the proper opportunity for them, also, because different folks, different strokes," says Cruz. With the acclaim and more experiment titles under his belt, though, we believe it won't take long till we're all on board the JLC reborn train.