was a critical success. Besides receiving positive reviews worldwide, it was also nominated for the Golden Lion—the highest prize at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.
Lead actor John Arcilla, on the other hand, has already bagged two awards for his “OTJ: 8” performance so far: the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and the Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Asian Academy Creative Awards 2022. So, when the Film Development Council of the Philippines announced that the crime thriller film is the country’s official bid for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards a.k.a *the* Oscars in 2023, we had one reaction:Directed by Erik Matti and written by his wife Michiko Yamamoto, “On the Job: The Missing 8” revolves around a journalist investigating the mysterious disappearance of his colleagues and a convict being brought out of prison to carry out assassination jobs.
It is inspired by true events and is a standalone sequel to the award-winning neo-noir action film “On the Job” featured at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. “‘The Missing 8’ picks up where [‘On the Job’] left off. It’s still built around prisoners being brought out of prison to kill, but the dynamics have changed because we had to introduce new characters. [It] became a four-way story with characters of their own. It became a totally different movie,” Matti told NME in an
3rd Death Anniversary of our Mom.