EVERYTHING ABOUT ALEXANDRA CUERDO IS ALL THAT WE EVER WANTED

Words and Interview: DINO TAKASHI

Alexandra Cuerdo never adheres to whispers from naysayers on how or where she would thrive. She is thriving anyway, everywhere, anywhere in spite of the current circumstances brought by the global health crisis. Allie, as called by people close to her, is one of the new voices of her generation who is proud to claim who she is and where she’s from and knows how her voice can shape the future of content and media that most minorities (or the collective term BIPOC) consume. Allie never backs down despite hearing that her work is too niche as she makes work that is close to home. A daughter of Filipino migrants from California, she pays homage to her queer and Asian  identity. With her first-full length feature film Ulam (Main Dish), now streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime, it showcases a new wave of Filipino-American restaurateurs with their interpretation of Filipino dishes and putting a new twist to the traditions their parents brought with them to the US.    

PHOTOGRAPHER: DINO TAKASHI

PHOTO ASST: JAMES AARONSON

Allie has been busy and constantly working during the lull time that everyone experienced in the past year. She enjoys being a filmmaker. She is currently working on a television pitch about an undocumented young  Asian woman who got into an Ivy League but can’t afford it because of her immigration status. This hits close home as her parents experienced the same struggles without the proper documentation to live in the US way before she was born. 

As Allie navigates her way to greater things as a filmmaker and the often bumpy but rewarding road path forward, we talked in Brooklyn about her upcoming project, her goal to create Asian stories, fulfilling that dream of directing Meryll Streep, and why minority filmmakers should always feel free to create without boundaries in spite of what they are otherwise told to do so. 

How are you and how have you been doing during the pandemic?

It's been a pandemic. I am OK, honestly, I'm just happy to be here and happy to be working because so many people I know lost their jobs during the pandemic. For me as a director, it's honestly been a joy that I have been booked for like most of the pandemic. It’s been a pretty cool time for me and my career. I would say there are those times in life when you feel like you're on the brink of something or leveling up on the path forward and I feel like that time has been this past year. I feel that I have been so lucky to have so many opportunities that I have. I think I would've never dreamed of even five years ago 

Tell us more about Dancing on my Own, your recent short film

That was filmed before the pandemic. So the entire film Dancing on my Own short film was funded by VSCO. They have this grant program given to five creators from underrepresented communities across and so I was the Queer Asian representing New York. We did a really fun mini documentary. It’s all about my version of the queer experience which is basically a love letter to my queer family in New York. 

Can you tell our readers about your first full-feature film Ulam? 

Ulam is my heart. I am Filipino American. That's how I identify myself. Chinese Filipino American and my family is from the Philippines. “Ulam” (main dish) is my first feature film that was so personal because we followed 13 Filipino-American chefs and restaurant tours in New York and Los Angeles as they were putting up their first Filipino restaurant. These weren’t the first Filipino restaurants in existence but a new wave made by the next generation of Filipinos. And it took me five years to complete it.

What is your favorite ulam? 

Truly, my Lola’s kare kare. For me a lot of food is so much about memory and it's so much about what you think of as home. For me it's always my Lola's cooking. She was the one who raised me and she grew up in Pampanga. My dad grew up on a pineapple farm. My father is the son of a farmer and my mother is the daughter of a chef in a way. That’s really what Ulam was to explore my own identity and specifically Filipino -American identity. A lot of my work is actually about identity. Ulam is about being Filipino and I think Dancing on my own is about being queer and those parts are who I am. 

What’s your take on identity politics being a practicing artist in America? 

It's so funny that those questions are asked mostly to minorities. I want to be known for my work. I want to be known for what I create, not for the boxes that I check. 

Now let's talk about your process as a filmmaker. Where do you derive your inspiration? 

It’s from life experiences. I'm working on a TV show right now, this year - “All I want is everything.” It's about an undocumented Asian girl who comes up in America and gets into an Ivy League school that she can't afford and sells drugs in the underground rave scene to pay for it. Imagine Breaking Bad and Euphoria had a baby and that baby was Asian. The series is directly from an experience. My parents when they came here were undocumented. I guess I grew up always feeling like I was separate because I had this culture and the language that no one understood. I would say a very brown face in a very white place and then from that experience, it sort of affected everything in my life and also inspires me to represent it. 

Do you have any experience dealing with people who are trying to say: “Make your work more universal and accessible?”

I would hear this more before the pandemic right than now because there has been an awakening in the film industry. A lot of times my work was called was “too niche,” “too specialized,” “not a big enough audience” and those things are difficult to hear from people who aren't interested in understanding. They don't know that Filipinos are the second largest Asian ethnic group in the United States. Tagalog is the fifth widely spoken language in the country. I hear it, “why do we need representation” and it's because of this conversation. I think we need representation because then we are given a chance to do our art in the way that we want to express it. Hopefully free from colonization. Hopefully free from imperialism. And that at the end of the day, free to create without boundaries. And if that is an expression of my identity then I think that’s my right.

Now having a platform and a louder voice, how do you want to change the fact that Filipinos often play other ethnicities? 

I would say we need more Filipino actors and more Filipino show runners. We need more Filipino executives and not just Filipinos but really all Asian Americans. I think that more likely than not, you are often asked to hire someone that you feel comfortable with and that usually means somebody who reminds you of yourself. I always hear this: “you remind me of a younger version of me” but the people who say that to me are Asian women they're Asian executives. They are people who are in a position of power and so they can green light a show. My position is I am here to write Asian and that's what I'm here for. I'm also here to direct and work at my craft and do well with it but I don't only want to make Asian films. But I think it's very important for me to write Asian roles because then I open the door for Asian actors. It’s so direct in the same way important for networks to greenlight content by Asian creators. Because that's how you get Asian actors and get Asian roles. It's a community relationship and I think that you know the time is now, if not now then when. 

Where is Allie in the next five years? 

I have no idea because life just in the last year has been such a wild ride. One of my highlights, I got to direct Meryll Streep. That was a moment that I never thought would ever happen in my whole life and the fact that it's happened already has made me feel like, let the universe guide me because for me it's more about remaining open to opportunities as they come up and taking on new challenges. I really want to do things that excite me. I want to do things that are new. Like I mentioned, I am hoping to get this TV show off the ground called “All I want is Everything,” because in the next five years I would love to be watching it on television. 

Let’s Manifest it! 

Let’s manifest it! 

If you were a book, what would you be? 

It would be the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. it's a book that is all about a little girl who goes on adventures and saves the world 

What's your message to Filipino who feels that they don’t belong to anything? 

I would say don't give up, we need you. We really do. Connect with each other. Connect with me. Find a community…that's the way we survive, that's the way we have longevity. And don’t give up because I need your stories.

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ULAM (MAIN DISH) is streaming in various VOD platforms