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Raging Grace won big at the SXSW Film & TV Festival film festival last month, taking home both the Thunderbird Rising Award Winner and the top prize of Jury Award in the Narrative Feature competition. Written and directed by Paris Zarcilla and produced by Chi Thai, the film served not only as their feature film debut but also as the first-ever British Filipino production. The story follows a single Filipina mom named Joy who works as a housekeeper as she tries to save up for a visa to stay in the UK with her daughter Grace.
Max Eigenmann and Jaeden Paige Boadilla play the dynamic mother-and-daughter duo, and their relationship is both the heart and highlight of Raging Grace. Everything Joy does is out of love for her daughter, in the hopes of providing her a better life, and it’s impossible not to root for them both to overcome their circumstance. Such a chance presents itself when Joy is given a full-time housekeeping position caring for the dying Master Garrett (David Hayman) while his supercilious niece Katherine (Leanne Best) goes out of town on business. Joy’s dream gig soon turns into a nightmare, however, in a brilliantly crafted tale that combines horror tropes with acute social commentary.
Screen Rant spoke to writer-director Paris Zarcilla and producer Chi Thai about how their collaboration took Raging Grace from page to screen, why different iterations of white power structures had to be included in a film about the immigrant experience, and where they sprinkled in moments of comedy thanks to Max Eigenmann’s stellar performance.
Paris Zarcilla & Chi Thai on Raging Grace at SXSW
Screen Rant: Paris, Raging Grace was originally inspired by your own experiences and knowledge of many Filipino immigrants’ experiences. Was there any specific spark that led to you starting the movie?
Paris Zarcilla: I actually remember the moment I was writing it. I was already really fired up to do this because of the combination of so many things in that chaotic year of 2020. But while I was writing it and researching some things, I came across “The White Man’s Burden” by Rudyard Kipling.
The poem is about colonial conquest, and it was written to inspire the American people of that time to go over to the Philippines and essentially conquer and rule the place. I remember laughing hysterically – maniacally even – after finishing the poem. I recalled memories of my own Filipino dad expounding the virtues of being a good immigrant, and not being a burden on British society, and then later singing along to the beloved songs from The Jungle Book, also written Rudyard Kipling.
The poem disgusts me, but I’m really grateful for it. In that year of great racial chaos and the rise of Asian hate, it really inspired a fury in me that led to Raging Grace. Thanks, Rudyard.
Chi, how early on in the process did you join as producer, and what spoke to you about the script?
Chi Thai: A lot. I think I was second on and, to be honest, I could hit the ground running because Paris and I were already working together. There was almost something else that we were going to make, but then it didn’t happen because of lockdown. Then he wrote Raging Grace, so I hit the ground running.
It was love at first sight with the script because, although it has the cultural specificity of being about a Filipino undocumented worker, it speaks so much to being a child of the diaspora. It was the lived experience of being Asian in the UK that I could relate to very personally. And because Paris already knew the person I am, he probably was like, “She’s going to love this.”
This is really everything that I’m passionate about. I feel like we had such a wonderful, creative marriage, and I didn’t have to shuffle to align with it. It was a perfect collaboration, and I feel really honored. You only get to have one first, and I’m proud that this was Paris’ debut as a writer-director and mine as a producer.
Speaking of it being your first, what was it like taking that leap? What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome?
Chi Thai: We had pennies to make this film, I just want to say. We didn’t have a great deal of money. We had some, though, and we made it go really far. There’s a sense of scale because it’s a feature film, but to be honest, the script was so good that what we ended up doing is close to the first draft in many ways. There’s been very little change, and because we were so personally close to it, it felt really manageable. There’s nothing I thought was insurmountable.
Paris Zarcilla: That’s so true. You go into any production, and you’re going into organized chaos; every single day is a miracle that you’ve reached the end of it.
Beyond the challenges and the complications that productions often bring, the one thing I think I did find very challenging was inheriting this responsibility for telling a story that puts British Filipinos onscreen. It’s a community that really hasn’t seen that much light of day in Western cinema, other than being props in the background of some white man’s film.
Chi Thai: Can I just say this is the first British Filipino film to ever have been produced?
Paris Zarcilla: Yes, it is. But the responsibility weighed very heavy, and there was this worry about whether or not it was representing the Filipino diaspora in the right way. But I was really pushing for something that I hoped could inspire pride in our culture. We are allowed to be angry, and we are allowed to rage. I felt that that is the starting point to being able to move into a place of healing; into a place of pride and belonging. It’s the right to rage gracefully.
And it just wouldn’t have happened without Chi here. Honestly, she provided a space for everyone, from every member of the crew to every HOD actor. She created an environment where we were all able to do our very best work.
Speaking of the diaspora, though I live in the US, I am also the child of an immigrant mother. I loved the bilingual aspect of the story, where Joy is speaking Tagalog and then Grace responds in English. Max Eigenmann was fabulous as Joy. What made her right for the role, and what was it like collaborating with her?
Paris Zarcilla: It was the way she responded to the material beyond the page. She was evolving the part, even during the auditions over Zoom, which was very difficult to do. It was also the thoughts that she had, and the role that she was going to embody as someone who doesn’t come from that place; who isn’t part of the diaspora.
It was her commitment to honor the role and the many people who are like that in the UK and the US and the Middle East. She knew she had a huge responsibility to embody someone that was going to rage against old and new white power; to smash past the bamboo ceiling that so many of us are contained by.
Also, beyond being able to be heartbreaking – she can also be funny. As much as there is horror and a thriller element to this film, there is also comedy. She was really able to embody that through her amazing physicality. It’s so important that there is humor here in the absurdity of the situation, and you can so easily get that wrong. But she was really able to carry that quite beautifully.
Chi Thai: Her physical humor is excellent. Every time I watch it, I can see something I haven’t seen before. She does it so well; it’s really brilliant. This is going to make me sound terrible, but even when I was watching them film, I didn’t even pick it up on it. It was only after, when you have it in the film and can see it onscreen that you’re like, “My God, it’s genius.” Those little comedic flourishes that she has are fantastic.
Jaeden Paige Boadilla also has such surprising range, given that this is her first onscreen project. Was Grace named after the title of the movie, or did the movie title come after the character of Grace?
Paris Zarcilla: Oh my gosh, I can’t quite remember. No, the title was here right from the beginning. I wanted our characters to be able to embody their namesakes at the end of the film. Joy experiences so little of it, so it was important for her to be able to move into that space by herself. It was always extinguished by the reality of her situation. It just never ever felt like joy was anything that she could experience, and the small joy that she did have was in Grace. I always love the idea of having characters who are their namesakes, and their DNA is in the narrative of the story.
You mentioned “The White Man’s Burden,” and the white power that we are raging against in this film. The embodiment of that is Katherine and Mr. Garrett, and I love how you explore the way that immigrant cultures are stereotyped through them. How important was it for both of you to showcase different arcs with them? Because I would never have expected Katherine’s destination versus her uncle.
Chi Thai: I think you picked up on a really good thing. If you want to break down the film on a really simplistic basis, it’s about a mother and daughter living between the cracks of old white power and new white power. You have old white power, which is Garrett, and new white power, which is Katherine. And originally – you’re going to love this – her name was Karen. And then we were like, “Maybe that’s too on the nose, let’s change that.”
We want to get a sense, especially with Katherine, that we have to find a way to be together in order to move forward. That we’re here as a community, as a society, and it’s totally possible to learn and overcome prejudice. This is what it kind of looks like. We felt, symbolically, that it was actually really important for Katherine to go on that journey.
Paris Zarcilla: But we were also careful about giving her a redemption arc. She still needed to be a terrible, horrible person. It’s just that she saw the same trauma happening to Grace that happened to her. She is a victim of the patriarchy, and victims and what they go through are complex. Terrible people can still have terrible things done to them, and they can suffer in the exact same way. There’s a complexity there that you couldn’t ignore, especially with Garrett. He’s someone that had a childhood that was so bereft of love, so he found a reluctant mother in Gloria.
But I knew that when it came to making this film, we were going to be approaching a place of chaos. That is what it is to approach the master’s house; it’s a place of great discomfort. But we were always saying how chaos isn’t always destruction; chaos precedes rebirth. And one of the most important things was knowing that Chi and I both came from a place where colonialists tried to suppress and erase our culture with fire. I always love paraphrasing Nikita Gill here, but you cannot burn away what was always aflame.
About Raging Grace
A bold coming-of-rage story. Joy is an undocumented Filipina immigrant who is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter when she secures the perfect job; taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new position pays well and guarantees a roof over their heads but very soon, Joy and her daughter Grace start to realize everything is not as it seems. Something is festering beneath the surface, threatening all they have worked for. Deeply personal, “Raging Grace” is a nightmarish fever dream from an exciting new voice.
Raging Grace premiered at SXSW on March 12.
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