The story is set in the surfing community of Baler, in northern Luzon, where a famous surfing scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s
Apocalype Now was shot in 1977. After production, a single surfboard was lost in the ocean, then found by a fisherman, who sold it to five local boys, who became the first Philippine surfing champions.
Ford is a surfing instructor, native of Baler. He has always been told that his real natural father was F.F. Coppola, who had an affair at the time with a young girl, only 14 years old, Chona, who became his mother. She has been trying to get Coppola to acknowledge her son, Ford, to no avail. So, Ford is a kind of local celebrity, rather handsome, and an amazing surfer. Since Ford and Chona are very close in age, they still live together, more like friends than mother and son.
Now, Ford is older, and may be not as good-looking, and not as good a surfer, though he has been the surfing champion for the last ten years. And, that year, there is an amazing local prodigy competing for the first time. And this surfing season is different, as a lot of things happen at the same time. Although Ford is now 30, he is still a surfing instructor, who needs to ask money from his mother for dinner…
But he has just started a new relationship with Fiona, a young woman who got back from the USA, because her grandmother is dying. She meets Ford while waiting… Also, his best friend from his childhood, Rich, comes home, as his father, the longtime Governor of Baler, just died. Rich has taken a seat in the Congress. Ford and Rich had a falling out many years ago, but no one really knows what happened, except themselves.
Rich brings with him his fiancée, Serena, who had a tragic past. Serena and Ford feel an instant attraction, that Rich strangely seems to encourage… And Rich has arranged for a blood test for Ford, to finally know who was his real father…
So, this is a rather strange summer, as Fiona watches Ford and Serena starting an affair, as Rich is getting closer to Chona, Ford’s mother, and they all hang out together, in an improbable relation. Nobody knows what is going to really happen…
Apocalypse Child aims at relating local stories and relationships with the myth of a famous foreign father, who made a mythical film in the Philippines almost forty years ago, and left his print…
Mario Cornejo, director, says: “I wanted to tell a story about myths, and about how we create narratives in our heads, about who we are. I think people are a collection of stories that we believe about ourselves, and we have to be aware of how those stories came to be, how they have been crafted and edited in our minds…
You are either the pretty one in the family, the smart one, or the black sheep. You are either the son of a famous film director, or a young mother who lost her baby, or a girl who used to hurt herself. You are your father’s son. Or you are the worst thing that happened to you. You are the worst thing you have ever done… […] Ford’s relationship with his own story has left him stuck. And because myths have that much power, I made a movie to help me see how these myths can be faced.”