Brillante Mendoza is a Cannes film festival winning director. His movies received much critical acclaim both in the Philippines and abroad. He accepted the task of directing the 2016 and 2017 SONA because, according to him – during one of his interviews with media prior to his, so to speak, directorial debut starring the President – “People might be wondering, ‘Why is there a director for the SONA?’ I just want to clear that up. I’m here as a director so we can reach the proper order of the shots and just to make sure also that we would be able to capture what kind of president he truly is.”