The Metro Manila Film Fest (MMFF) was among 2016’s big shockers, albeit a pleasant one and one that would weave a lovely thread among people’s musings of a tumultuous year in Philippine politics, social media and everywhere else public opinion figured.
The eight full-length movies competing in the MMFF were announced on November 18, along with eight short films also in competition. The big surprise was that the list did not include “regulars” Enteng Kabisote or its iterations in the decades-long movie series of Vic Sotto, Star Cinema’s annual Vice Ganda movie starrer, Regal Films’ Mano Po, etc. These movies were deemed the shoo-ins and sure box office hits in the film fest in the previous years, that were somehow thought to be what the festival was about: big commercial films and big box office sales. However, the competition committee, board of jurors and Executive Committee (Execom), all the while emphasizing “quality” and “artistic excellence” in the basis of selection, left these out and sent a message loud and clear.
The “Magic 8” of MMFF 2016 were selected based on the new criteria; story, audience appeal and overall impact (40%), cinematic attributes or technical expertise (40%), global appeal (10%), and Filipino sensibility (10%). For the first time, the producers were required to submit “picture lock” or finished films, when before only screenplays were required for the selection process.
The MMFF selection criteria in 2015 held onto a long practice of prioritizing commercial value. It gave commercial viability 50%, story, creativity, writing excellence, innovativeness and thematic value was given 40% and Filipino cultural and historical value, 10%. With any luck, that practice finally ended in 2015.
Even the vision statement of the festival was updated. The MMFF is now envisioned as “a festival that celebrates Filipino artistic excellence, promotes audience development and champions the sustainability of the Philippine film industry.” Its mission statement, on one hand, reads that it aims “to develop audiences for and encourage the production of quality Filipino films, and to promote the welfare of its workers.” Has change finally come to the annual film festival that started in 1975? Or did the MMFF just got lost and is now finding its way back?
A forerunner of the MMFF is the Manila Film Festival, founded by then-Manila Mayor Antonio Villegas in 1966. The intention is to promote Filipino films and consequently banned foreign films in Manila theaters during its annual run in the month of June, leading up to Manila Day (cityhood anniversary). The Gatpuno Antonio J. Villegas Cultural Award was created in 1990 in honor of Villegas after his death in 1984. The award is given to the film that best depicts Philippine culture and the Filipino people. Many of the features of that precursor festival have lived through the present MMFF. From its beginnings, the MMFF has spotlighted Filipino films and gave it a breather from Hollywood and the glut of foreign films. It has spurred cinematically accomplished and politically engaged films and made them prosper through the festival run.
(The first MMFF in 1975, then Metropolitan Film Festival, however, was held on September 21. It was scheduled for the third anniversary of Martial Law, coopting a much-awaited event to perhaps make a dictatorship festive.)
The excruciating height of the primacy of commercial viability as criteria was probably marked in 2006. The Best Picture award was given to Enteng Kabisote 3: Okay Ka Fairy Ko, The Legend Goes On and On due to a change of criteria giving more weight to commercial appeal. The said film topped the box office in the first three days of the festival. This prompted Star Cinema to contest the award, saying their entry Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo should have been awarded Best Picture since it topped the final box office. Oddly, the Best Picture award was all about the money. In 2009, the same criteria for Best Picture more or less remained, with box office earning on the first three days or December 25 to 27 (50%), artistry, creativity and technical excellence, innovativeness and global appeal (40%) and Filipino, cultural and/or historical value (10%). In 2010, commercial viability or box office sales was no longer included as criteria for winners. The criteria for Best Picture that year were artistry, creativity and technical excellence, innovation, and thematic value. The MMFF has been bobbing between emphasizing commercial viability and artistic excellence for quite some time. And in 2016, the MMFF made clear where it stood on these two standards.
Yet, Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and MMFF Execom Chairman Emerson Carlos clarified, when the changes were rolled out in the June launch of MMFF, that they are expecting quality films that would do well in the box office. Carlos also went on to share that a new award, People’s Choice, would recognize the commercial value of the film. Moira Lang, another Execom member, said that commercial viability as a term was avoided, but is already embedded in the other criteria. Execom member Boots Anson-Roa possibly explained best the MMFF Execom’s aspirations this year: “…This, I’m proud to say, was something that the members of the selection committee agreed upon very wholeheartedly na isang pelikula ay maaring maging napakataas ng kalidad, napakaseryoso, pero nagcoconnect sa audience.” If the movie connects, people will watch it and it will earn in the box office.
And to say that there have not been artistically excellent films and even politically engaged ones in the MMFF in the past would be a falsehood or a failure of memory. The MMFF, while in many years have been the wagon for cash cows, have given us Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon (1976), Insiang (1976), Minsa’y Isang Gamu-gamo (1976), Burlesk Queen (1977), Atsay (1978), Rubia Servios (1978), Bona (1980), Brutal (1980), the original Ang Panday (1980), Kisapmata (1981), Himala (1982), Karnal (1983), Bulaklak sa City Jail (1984), Ano ang Kulay ng Mukha ng Diyos (1985), Andrea, Paano Ba Maging Isang Ina? (1990), Ang Totoong Buhay ni Pacita M. (1991), Jose Rizal (1998), Muro-Ami (1999), Markova: Comfort Gay (2000), Bagong Buwan (2001), Dekada ’70 (2002), Crying Ladies (2003), Blue Moon (2005), Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh (2006), Dayo sa Mundo ng Elementalia (2008), Rosario (2010), Manila Kingpin (2011), Thy Womb (2012), Bonifacio: Ang Unang Pangulo (2014), Honor Thy Father (2015) and many more.
The MMFF has been riddled with controversy throughout its existence, usually in the form of the selection of films, nominations or award winners being questioned. It had its fair share of walkouts and boycotts, peculiar incidents as leaks and non-awarding of one or more awards, and huge upsets in the awards or box office. This time, there is the issue of animal cruelty in a film and subsequent sanctions as pullouts, banning, withdrawal of awards, etc. The talk on the MMFF 2016 may be the most productive yet, as the push for the new criteria had the public debating definitions of quality, artistic merits and eventually going to see the films to see for themselves. The MMFF remains the most popular and commercially successful film fest in the country, having been backed up with laws and has had a long-running monopoly in Christmas holidays entertainment fare and media publicity (especially after the Gabi ng Parangal) when it is on its run. Those are its advantages that money-milking films have undermined. With changes underway, the MMFF may now truly serve advantageous to Filipino films.
Commendable in the MMFF 2016 was the film fest committee’s daring in the selection criteria and selection of films. They took a risk to tread a path to the long term goal of developing Filipino audience by wanting to offer them artistically excellent films. To a point, they sacrificed commercialism and profit for cinematic quality and for possibly trying establishing a culture of this–an investment without quick returns. They did this even if they knew they would earn the ire of the major players and the old wards of dominant/mainstream cinema and their posse of publicists, marketers, loyalists, followers, etc. all over the movie industry.
The inclusion of a documentary film in the MMFF was innovative. They gave the genre as much weight as the more theater and film fest-prevalent narrative or fiction films. This move invited interest for audiences to watch full-length documentary films that could convey a message as potently as fiction films and not only see them as common current events television fare.
Praises go as well to the moviegoers who supported the MMFF this year. For reasons other than the holidays and having Christmas bonus to spend, people lined up and paid to see these films. Despite the doubts casted on it, film-loving Filipinos trooped to the theaters, may it be due to force of habit or conscious support to the changes in the MMFF.
The MMFF 2016 also indicated that the public are looking for new films to watch. They are not ineludibly after the “pang-masa” films excluded in this year’s festival that was pegged to be their taste. The section of the intelligentsia may have long griped at the crop of money-milking films in the MMFF and clamored for changes, but the patronage of better films this year was due credit to all. What was offered in the MMFF 2016 belonged to the people, and not only to a few enlightened. The people could be offered better films and they would watch it.
And the MMFF 2016 did not disappoint. The films in the MMFF 2016 are worth your while watching. Each movie is a different journey. Two or three of the eight are quite remarkable and unforgettable.
Still, cinematically accomplished and politically engaged films as those produced in the Golden Age of Cinema, also in the beginnings of the MMFF, have yet to be produced. A new golden age is yet to come and a new rank of Brocka, Bernal, De Leon, Diaz-Abaya, Kashiwahara, O’Hara, Romero, etc. yet to be acclaimed. Themes have yet to graduate from the exposition of poverty, exoticization of culture, promotion of individualism, etc. This can be said for the whole movie industry. Films that challenge prevailing ideas and order have yet to flourish. We ought to be reminded, haunted even, by films like Insiang that exposed the slums contradicting the ruse ‘The True, The Good and The Beautiful’ and Minsa’y Isang Gamu-gamo that dramatized unequal US and Philippine relations and criticized American military presence in a supposedly sovereign nation–both produced during the time of fascist rule and censorship.
The MMFF 2016 ran from December 25 to January 3, the mandatory 10-day period of the MMFF. Although in past years the MMFF extended to a full two-week run, the commercial cinemas initially did not look to extend it this time around, buzzes due to the “unpopular” film selection. The MMFF Execom succeeded in negotiating for a four-day extension (until January 7) and after that, some of the top-grossing films (more than half of them) continue to be shown in the cinemas.
A #Reelvolution is in the offing. We need to take part in it so it could succeed.
