Faces of the News: Mike de Leon

Illustration by Rene Elevera

After an 18-year hiatus, acclaimed filmmaker Mike de Leon returns behind the camera with the movie “Citizen Jake,” currently showing in cinemas.

The buzz surrounding the film is understandable because De Leon’s last movie, “Bayaning Third World,” came out in 2000.

The comeback movie tells of a journalist (real-life reporter Atom Araullo) who gets entangled in a web of deceit and depravity while investigating the brutal rape and murder of a female student.

De Leon said: “The film is ultimately not about journalism but about the inner journey of a privileged young man who happens to be a journalist.”

The movie asks disturbing questions on martial law politics and the current sad state of the nation.

It can also be a “metaphor of this young man’s country: unchanging, repeating the same mistakes generation after generation,” De Leon noted.