Senate Majority Leader Vincente Sotto III is pushing for a separate indie film festival after he criticized organizer of the 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival for acting like the Grinch who stole Christmas from children.
Sotto lamented that children were not able to watch movies tradionally shown during the holiday season, including “Enteng Kabisote-10” which was produced by the senator’s young brother, Vic Sotto.’’
In his proposed measure, Sotto said the absence of mainstream films in the 2016 MMFF was prejudicial to the regular film festival moviegoers, particularly the children.
“They were like the Grinch who stole Christmas from our kids,” the senator said.
He said the indie film festival may be shown during the semestral break in May instead.
“The audience turnout (during last year’s MMFF) has been low prompting a number of theaters to drop some films from its list of movies being screened,” Sotto said.
“Independent films must be given its well-deserved spotlight—separate from the mainstream films that can take or divide the attention from them —from the public in general,” he added.
Now on its 42nd year, the MMFF introduced significant changes for entry criteria. Previously, 50 percent was alloted to a film’s commercial viability.