Why ‘Open Endings’ Feels Like Coming Home for Queer Women

Sleep-deprived and sweating bullets just a few steps away from the bathroom stalls of a tiny bar in San Juan City, trying to interview four actresses, wasn’t exactly how I pictured my Sunday going. I’d been asked to do the interview just a day or two ago, and while I rarely agree to profiles these days, something about this story felt too close to walk away from.

So there I was, phone in hand, saying “Sorry, ang init” to every person I ushered out for a quick chat outside Samin, the sleek yet cozy LGBTQ+ friendly community space that’s become a spot for locals in the area. None of them seemed to mind though. The cast of Open Endings was easygoing and more than willing to indulge my little tangents.

As a queer woman myself, there was something fitting about meeting them here, outside a space that’s become a small refuge for our community. It mirrored what the Cinemalaya entry was at its core: a story about queer women carving out their own spaces—in friendship, in love, and now on-screen.

Meet the Women of Open Endings

Open Endings began as a simple what-if: Director Nigel Santos and writer Keavy Vicente walked out of a Cinemalaya screening craving for a film they could finally see themselves in. That what-if shaped everything that followed: a story drawn from lived experience, a more than six-month audition process, a deliberately female- and queer-led crew, even SOGIESC (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics) workshops for the team to build a set that felt safe and intentional. It’s the kind of detail you don’t always see, but you feel.

That sort of care and heart was reflected in the people they chose to tell it. Sitting with the four women who lead the film, I realized each of them carried something that made the film feel bigger than its runtime. 

Jasmine Curtis-Smith, who hasn’t played a queer film role since the breakout indie film Baka Bukas in 2016, comes back to sapphic storytelling with the calm, grounded presence of someone who’s grown up alongside the audience. “After Baka Bukas, nakikita natin ’yung deeper side of the relationship of queer women. It’s not just stories like, ‘Oh, I have a crush, how do I tell her?’ — tapos na ’yun sa Baka Bukas [era.] Now we’re telling stories that are deep in life already.”

Janella Salvador, on the other hand, has carved a quiet reputation as an staunch ally: from her unexpected Valentina-Darna sapphic loveteam with Jane De Leon to her strong push for more GL pairings on-screen. She’s been championing space for queer women’s stories even before she stepped into Open Endings. “This has always been my goal. It's just that recently mas nagkaroon ako ng confidence, mas naging brave ako. And, I realized na there are only a few people who actually speak up for the community, so I want to be one of them.”

Leanne Mamonong, one half of the pop-R&B duo Leanne & Naara and openly queer herself, brings the sincerity of someone stepping into her first major acting role—an experience that mirrors the tentative vulnerability of her character. “It was such a cool opportunity that this is my first film, and it's a queer film. I love that the team and production really took the effort to look for queer people to be cast in the film. So, it's really one of the main reasons why I was so excited to jump in.”

Klea Pineda, who came out publicly in 2023, lends the story a kind of lived-in truth: not as a statement, but as someone who knows exactly what it means to see yourself reflected on-screen at last. “Isa siya sa mga dreams ko. Matagal ko nang gusto magkaroon ng role na lesbian, na maka-represent ako sa community. First film ko pa, Cinemalaya pa, and ‘yung gustong-gusto ko pa na role. Sobrang blessing ‘to sa akin.”

There’s a tenderness in the way they talk about their characters—not as archetypes, but as women they recognize from their own circles. They joke about U-Haul lesbians, their characters’ bad decisions, and lament at how much of themselves they can see in these fictional roles. Somewhere in between the banter, you sense why they said yes to this film: because they’ve either lived pieces of it, seen it unfold firsthand, or loved someone who has.

On Identity and Feeling Seen

To be a queer woman is to move through the world constantly aware of how you’re seen. Queerness, by nature, is a quiet act of defiance against the scripts we’re handed, but layered with the way girls are raised to chase male validation, it often feels like living in perpetual state of performance.

That awareness is something you can never fully shake off. Even in the ‘safest spaces,’ you carry it like muscle memory. I found myself wondering: if it’s already hard enough to navigate that as an ordinary person, what must it feel like to do it under the scrutiny of the public eye?

Klea knows that pressure all too well. Coming out publicly in 2023 made her one of the very few openly queer actresses in local showbiz—an industry still defined by conventional expectations. “Kailangan may palagi kang papatunayan. Parati mong kailangan mag-exert ng sobrang effort compared sa mga straight people sa industry,” she said. “If bading ka like me, [people say], ‘Ah, baka hindi ka na namin ma-partner sa lalaki kasi wala namang maniniwala na kinikilig ka sa lalaki.’ But, as an actress, trabaho kong mag-portray ng isang character, mabuhay sa shoes ng character.”

Yet for all the obstacles, there’s a lightness that comes with stepping fully into yourself. As Klea put it, “Masaya ako kasi naging malaya ako. ’Yung freedom of not having to hide so much, ’yung hindi mo na kailangan magtago kung paano mo i-present ’yung sarili mo sa mga tao. Parang nakahinga ako ng maluwag.” We both teared up as we talked about that shared experience as queer women—the kind of release only those who’ve carried that weight would understand.

Leanne, on the other hand, who comes from the local independent music scene, has had a very different experience. We reflected on how jarring it must be in the actor world where it is much more traditional. “Feeling ko mas mahirap siya kasi they're really in the public eye. In the music scene, we're very lowkey—at least the scene I'm from. The people are more forgiving and accepting because your listeners are also queer. So, they consider us a safe space.”

That perspective also reflected her own quieter queer journey, which started out as something she hadn’t given much thought to until she realised how it resonated with others. “I didn't even realize I was on a journey because my whole life, I've just been truthful to myself. Kaya, during Pride last year, when I posted a video, I didn’t mean for it to be a coming out video, but then it became that. In my head, I've always been out. But, the fact that you said it out loud means a lot to people. So, it also meant a lot to me.”

It struck me how different our paths had been, yet so much of the emotions behind it felt the same. It reminded me that queerness may take many shapes, but the search for a space to belong and feel seen is something we all carry.

Why Stories Like This Still Matter

After years of pandemic isolation, it often feels as if we’re still living in our own little bubbles. But, spaces like Samin—or even a film set that becomes its own tiny universe—remind me why we keep seeking each other out.

I think of a line I read the other day from a Dazed article that stuck with me: “Modern life is fast, fragmented, and highly individualised. Community provides the grounding force of being seen, known, and supported through both joys and struggles.”

For queer women especially, that grounding force has always been harder to find. Representation for queer women in media has been scarce for decades—often tragic, over-sexualised, or written as cautionary tales. That’s why spaces—whether physical like a neighbourhood bar, or cultural like a film—become so important. They remind us we’re not alone in this journey, that there’s a shared language of experience.

Janella grew up seeing that sense of normalcy in her own circles. “Since nursery, St. Paul na ako,” she told me. “So, honestly, for me, it was never really a weird thing [to be queer]. Mas na-culture shock ako sa mga people with a homophobic mindset. When I left school to get into showbiz, na-realize ko na ang layo pa pala natin. I mean, yes, we’ve had some progress throughout the years. But, our country is still very conservative.”

Jasmine shared a similar frustration: that even as progress continues in some circles, there’s still a vast gap in understanding. “I still get so surprised na andami pa rin palang tao na hindi alam what a lesbian woman is, what a gay man is, what a trans woman is, what a trans man is,” she said. “I got asked that the other day. Pina-explain niya sa akin. So, I had to channel my energy to not get angry because the first reaction is, ‘Wow, what the hell? You’re not making an effort to educate yourself!’ Then you remember, ‘Okay, hindi niya alam. I see the effort. Tinatanong niya sa’yo.’ Maybe you can be the vessel to help them understand.”

That resistance to sapphic stories is felt behind the camera too. Janella admitted that getting stories like these green-lit in local showbiz is still a challenge. “When it comes to sapphic representation, it's so hard to get approved. It's so hard to get to the point where the project is pushing through. Because I've kind of been through it for the past how many years.” She continues, “As an actress, I get warned a lot na, ‘If you do this, baka mawalan ka nito.’ So, for me, it just got to a point where I'm like, ‘Bakit? May ginagawa ba masama? Is there anything wrong with what we're doing? What is so wrong about that, that we have to lose a certain group of people or supporters. Why?’ So, ‘yun ‘yung pinaglalaban ko ngayon.”

For Jasmine, that’s precisely why she often gravitates back to the indies—it becomes the chance to spotlight stories you wouldn’t otherwise see anywhere else. “In the independent [film] scene, there’s more allowance for risk, to be bolder about how loud you want your volume to be. Sometimes, you can tackle a theme in the mainstream, but you have to tone it down, or match it to the [mass] audience. That’s fine. We need that. Every type of storytelling has its place in the world of storytelling and cinema. But, I feel I have more of a voice here.”

Walking out of the photoshoot, I kept thinking about how many of us have learned to find each other in corners—a local cafe, a character in a movie, a moment of meaningful conversation with someone who’s been in the exact same place you’re in. 

While, Open Endings doesn’t pretend to fix that scarcity, it offers something I and many others have longed for: a story that feels honest in its messiness and softness, one that doesn’t put romance at the centre of our universe, but instead celebrates the bonds we share with one another—the kind that hold us steady even when everything else shifts.

It reminded me that's how, in my own queer journey, I’m very lucky for the people who’ve truly seen me—the friends who’ve reflected parts of myself back to me, who’ve made me feel understood in ways I didn’t know I needed, who’ve found me in times I couldn’t find myself. It’s a reminder that even as we’re still figuring ourselves out, we find pieces of home in each other. After all, isn’t that what keeps us going?

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Photography by Yel Dela Paz

Assisted by Cj Canlas 

Art Direction by Joe Andy

Styling by Raine Robo

Fashion film by Sean Pascual 

Cover story and interview by Marielle Filoteo

Makeup by Jhai Castillo (for Leanne), Kimroy Opog (for Jasmine),  Jason Delos Reyes (for Klea), Cielo Desamparado (for Janella)

Hair by Jhai Castillo (for Leanne),  Bryan Eusebio (for Jasmine), Justine Ocampo (for Janella)

Charlie Manapat (for Klea)

Official Venue Partner : Saamin San Juan

Food sponsors: Saamin San Juan, Tripods Pizza, and By Request Coffee 

Special Thanks To Anne Dizon, Surot Matias

Publisher Big Pictures Asia

For partnership or advertising inquiries: Sales & Marketing – jsmooth@bigpictureasia.com