Who wouldn’t want to have a Mr. Miyagi, an Obi-Wan Kenobi or a Morpheus to take them by the hand and teach them the secrets of their art and their world? The teacher-disciple relationship, an inexhaustible source of literary, theatrical and cinematographic material, dates back to ancient times: in fact, the word “mentorship” is inspired by the old Mentor, a character in the Odyssey, whose appearance the goddess Pallas Athena takes to guide the young Telemachus – son of Ulysses and Penelope – in times of difficulty.
In 2002, the Rolex watch brand established the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Programeither. Every two years, a board of professionals and artists suggests a list of potential mentors and then, together with them, selects possible protégés from among young people who are taking their first (and promising) steps in their respective disciplines. Those covered are architecture, dance, cinema, literature, music, theater and visual arts. For two years, the master and the disciple spend at least six weeks – usually more – exchanging knowledge.
Thanks to this program, for example, in 2008 Martin Scorsese and Celina Murga met; now it has just been released The aroma of freshly cut grassdirected by Argentina and produced by the legend of American cinema. That same year, in theater, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart worked with the American Kate Valk.
Other recently selected Argentines were, in cinema, Agustina San Martín (her tutor was the American Lin-Manuel Miranda) and, in theater, Matías Umpiérrez (she worked under the wing of the Canadian Robert Lepage).
At the recent Toronto Festival, which ran from September 5 to 15, the mentor-protégé duo formed by the Chinese Jia Zhang-Ke and the Filipino Rafael Manuel were presented. Part of the so-called “Sixth Generation” of Chinese filmmakers, emerging in the late ’80s and early ’90s and characterized by the stark realism with which they explored the socioeconomic reality of their country, Zhang-Ke is known for films such as Platform (2000) o Still life (2006) -Golden Lion at the Venice Festival- and was in Argentina to present his debut work, Xiao Wuin the first edition of Bafici, in 1999.
In Toronto he presented his most recent feature film, Caught by the Tides (“Caught by the tides” would be the literal translation), constructed with a precise edition of unpublished images from its archive, material discarded from previous films and new scenes. Thus, mixing documentary with fiction, it traces the relationship between a man and a woman (played by Zhao Tao, his fetish actress and wife) that develops from 2001 to 2021, with the dizzying changes in China as a backdrop.
“The era of artificial intelligence is entering China very strongly. There are hotels, restaurants and even public offices staffed by robots. They are doing simple tasks, but soon they will enter our homes,” she says with her slow speech, almost in a whisper and without ever abandoning Mandarin, a translator into English through.
Manuel was a privileged witness to the filming of the film and also to part of the laborious editing, which took three years. Zhang-Ke jokes that he chose it because they share two hobbies: good tobacco and good food. Another reason was the impact it had on him. Filipinothe short film with which the young Filipino won the Silver Bear at the 2020 Berlin Festival. It takes place on a golf course: one of the legacies of American colonization in the Philippines is the hundreds of spaces to practice that sport that there are. in the archipelago.
Jia Zhang-Ke and Rafael Manuel, teacher and disciple in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Program, at the 2024 Toronto Festival. “I want to portray the violence that exists in my country, but not in the way it is traditionally represented,” says Manuel, adding that much of Philippine cinema exploits poverty. “There are many murders, rapes and overexposure of the ghettos. But as the Philippines develops and the middle class grows, that becomes further and further from reality.”
Admirer of Lucrecia Martelhe maintains that his goal is to develop a more subtle social portrait: “Golf courses in my country were first established on American military bases, and then adopted by the ruling elite, so there is an inherent violence to them, although murders or rapes do not occur there.”
These golf courses, he explains, are the symbol of an unfair, classist and discriminatory system.. And he adds: “Filipinos are obsessed with belonging to the first world, but they don’t realize the high cost that can have.”
Manuel studied film in London and currently lives in Amsterdam, where he has a production company, although he returns periodically to his country. In Manila he received Zhang-Ke, who spent three days on the set of the extended version of the short film, helping him convert Filipino in a feature film.
“It stimulated me to give more movement to the shots, to break with what I felt comfortable and explore, experiment,” says Manuel during a public interview with Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto Festival. “Told me: ‘Rafael, you are still a very young filmmaker. Why are you trying to pigeonhole yourself into a certain style?’.”
Owner of an unbreakable serenity, with dark glasses that give him the appearance of a mysterious star and he does not take off at any time (“I developed photosensitivity as a result of spending so many hours in the editing room,” he will explain) Zhang-Ke has a Zen master aura that fits his role as a mentor.
“The collaboration with Rafael occurred especially during the pandemic; At times my connection with him through Zoom was the only one I had with the world at that time,” he says. Manuel visited him in China as soon as the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 were relaxed a little and accompanied him in the editing room, while Zhang-Ke reviewed his file.
Some time later, he visited him on the set where he was filming new scenes for the film. And on both occasions they spent free time together. “We made two or three trips along the routes of China together. We drove about 400 kilometers to my hometown,” said Zhang-Ke, who had to adopt the role of a stern father figure due to Manuel’s frequent forgetfulness of documentation. “There were still many road controls due to the pandemic, and he did not have his passport with him. It was a little dangerous, but also exciting.”