During the bloggers’ conference for Star Cinema’s newest offering “Barcelona: A Love Untold,” it was revealed that the film is tailored for its stars Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla as a going out of their cutesy roles to being ready for mature roles and maybe one day, even sexier ones.
“It’s a transition phase for them, meaning, you have a story that is more adult than what they used to do but at the same time, not too heavy na parang hindi nila kakayanin,” explains director Olivia Lamasan. “Ang laki din ng parte nilang dalawa sa pag-buo ng mga characters na ito, they also provided inputs,” she continues.
Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla was first paired in the TV series “Princess and I,” with Enrique Gil as the third wheel. From then on, their love team was unbreakable, the two kept on doing TV series and then their loved team took the next level and had gone to films. Starting with the romance anthology film titled “24/7 in Love” and then the blockbuster Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) 2012 entry “Sisterakas” with Vice Ganda, Kris Aquino and Ai-Ai Delas Alas. In 2013, they finally got their solo film titled “Must Be…. Love” directed by Dado Lumibao, then joined the MMFF race with the horror thriller Pagpag: Siyam na Buhay.” In 2014, they starred in the film by director Cathy Garcia-Molina titled “She’s Dating the Gangster” which was based on the Pop Fiction book of the same name originally publish by CandyMag.com’s Teen Talk section and was popularized by Bianca Bernardino on the online storytelling community, Wattpad. The film was received well by the audience and the critics making successful in the box-office. Last year, director Mae Cruz-Alviar helmed their fourth solo film “Crazy Beautiful You” and now, their fifth film titled “Barcelona: A Love Untold”, with box-office director Olivia Lamasan whose works like “Sana Maulit Muli” and “Got 2 Believe” are classics in the romance section of Philippine cinema
Opening with a whopping 23 million pesos on its first day, September 14, Barcelona: A Love Untold broke the first-day highest box-office gross record beating AlDub’s (Alden Richard and ‘Yaya Dub’ Maine Mendoza)’s Imagine You and Me which opened to more than 21 million pesos. Philippine cinema is indeed alive, and the fanbases of these love teams are challenging themselves on who’s the best by supporting their idols, some may not be healthy but the support is glaring.
One of the bloggers at the bloggers’ conference asks, “When you wrote the script, did you really have Daniel and Kathryn in mind?”
Raymundo answers: “Simula pa lang po ng project alam na po namin,it’s for Kathryn and Daniel, so the story was really tailored for them.” Lamasan continues, “The project was assigned to us by Star Cinema specifically by Malou Santos. It was after Pangako Sa’yo, so after TV, we would drop right away to film, so ito ‘yung project na pinrepare.”
Watch the “Barcelona: A Love Untold” bloggers’ conference with Kathryn Bernardo, Daniel Padilla, director Olivia Lamasan and writer Carmi Raymundo here:
Ely, a young man who can’t get over Celine, his past love, meets Mia, a young woman who escaped from a painful past in the Philippines and is trying her luck to rebuild her life in Spain.
They meet. They fall in love.
But can they overcome the hurt of the past to have a future together?
“Barcelona: A Love Untold” is now showing in Philippine cinemas nationwide from Star Cinema. Rated PG by the MTRCB.