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Friday, March 29, 2024

Independent choices

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Year after year, cinema-going Filipinos find themselves with not much choice of movies to watch over the Christmas holidays. 

Among the usual titles are franchises of movies that have aired for decades, with versions and actors changing but the stories revolving around the same themes. 

Usually they take the form of fantasy films. There is a hero who slays enemies, and the hero is funny and virtuous and frail all at the same time. The villains are eventually defeated—and the hero gets the beautiful girl, as well. 

Sometimes there are horror movies even if what is truly scary is the gall with which these pass themselves off as genuine entertainment. 

Yet other movies thrive on sentimentality—playing on the Filipino’s penchant for melodrama,  stereotypes and tried-and-tested formula. 

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In recent years, other means of watching movies have emerged. Technology has allowed us to still be able to see movies of our liking without necessarily waiting for what is playing at the cinemas. Then again, this is for those Filipinos with home entertainment systems or at least personal computers and internet access. The rest of the population, though, is consigned, for a full week, to choose from the inane offerings during the Metro Manila Film Festival. 

Comes now the list of this year’s movies, which surprisingly do not include the usual titles that producers have imposed on us over the years. Instead, the festival’s organizers, the Metro Manila Development Authority—perhaps during a lucid break from the maddening traffic situation here—  have chosen eight independent movies made by emerging filmmakers. 

The eight entries approved by the selection committee, chosen for their quality and representation of all genres, are “Die Beautiful,” “Vince & Kath & James,” “Seklusyon,” “Kabisera,” “Sunday Beauty Queen,” “Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2,” “Oro,” and “Saving Sally.”

The producer of one of the usual film outfits notorious for feeding the public junk has aired her grievance on the matter—and it is amazing how just a few words betray the industry’s extremely low regard for the Filipino audience.

“All these poor people, they have bonuses. Once they get their bonus, they bring their whole family to the movies to watch. It’s just a pity—I feel sorry for the children,” said Regal Films’ Lily Monteverde. 

As far as we know, squandering one’s hard-earned bonus is not enough reason to inflict an entire bad movie on one’s family. 

On the contrary, we feel great about the children and the entire viewing public, whether they get their bonuses or not, who will this year be able to have a better range of movies to choose from. It’s a festival worth looking forward to, indeed.  

Woe to those who insult the people’s intelligence by thinking they are shallow, uncritical viewers who just want a quick fix. It’s time to prove them wrong and, with any luck, put them out of business. 

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