'More Filipinos now like indie films; hunger for non-commercialized cinema'
abs-cbnnews.com | 07/26/2008 6:11 PM
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By RAMIL DIGAL GULLE
abs-cbnNEWS.com
We have seen the future of Philippine cinema and it is all about indie. An astonishing number of people came to watch this year's Cinemalaya--around 26,900 people--considering how commercial movies still earn the big bucks at the box-office; the past four years of the indie film festival organized by the Cinemalaya Foundation and the Cultural Center of the Philippines seem to have yielded its greatest harvest, so far. And to think that four years ago, only 8,000 people watched the first Cinemalaya screenings.
It's also a tribute to Cinemalaya's success that people today actually care about which films won and did not win, and who really deserved the awards given out by festival's end--the four-year-old indie filmfest simply generated more interest from audiences, more buzz in the media, and more discussion and debate over the awards night than ever before. In short, we've never been this interested in Filipino indie films, ever.
Cinemalaya Festival Director and CCP President Nestor Jardin could not be more pleased at the attention Cinemalaya has received this year.
"We have proven that their is a ray of hope as far as audienceship is concerned for independent films. We wish to reach a point where independent films can be commercially viable. You see, many filmmakers have put in a personal investment--even their families help--in the production of an independent film. We want them to earn not just reach a recovery of their cost, to not just break even but actually earn a profit, so they would continue doing films," he said.
Jardin said the Cinemalaya audience has grown steadily in the past four years. "8,000 people watched in 2004. In 2005, 12,000 watched. Last year, roughly 23,000 people went to the screenings. This year, we had almost 27,000 people come to watch. There were so many people at the CCP watching the films," he said.
Pinoys: hungry for substance
For Jardin, this trend can only mean that a significant segment of the general movie-going audiences with a hunger for other stories, other narratives to be the subject of cinema.
"The kind of crowd that we have is the college, high school, general public, expats; I think this I would consider a highly educated sector looking for substantive films. Mainstream cinema, we're all aware, is formulaic, this segment is looking for those stories, narratives that are not usually told in the mainstream," he said.
He also said that Cinemalaya's objective of discovering new filmmakers every year has been met, consistently. Still, Jardin is not naive enough to think that the predictable, fantastic and escapist type of cinema will be affected much by the growing audience for indie--the power of beautiful stars like Anne Curtis and Aga Muhlach showing off their bodies at the beach is just too much for most moviegoers to resist.
Rather, Jardin said he hopes for a cross-pollination between mainstream, commercial cinema, and independent filmmaking.
Free vision
But wait--what exactly does he mean when he describes a film as "independent"?
"You know, we could spend the whole day discussing and trying to define what an independent film is. There are many opinions and theories. However, Cinemalaya has adopted a definition that has worked for it through the years: Independent films are those that follow the vision of the filmmaker--free from restrictions and demands of producers, commercial considerations, and other factors that may impede that vision. That's why we call it Cinemalaya [a portmanteau of "cinema" and the Filipino word for freedom, "laya"]. We want the filmmaker to have as much freedom to fulfill his vision," he said.
Jardin has no idea when this year's Cinemalaya entries will be available for future screenings or on DVDs. He said the subsequent distribution and marketing of Cinemalaya films are already out of the Cinemalaya Foundation's hands.
"We're happy that last year, one of the films screened at the Cinemalaya, 'Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros)'", was screened in Philippine cinemas. There was also a distributor in France that released it in cinemas there. I was also happy to see in Paris that there were DVDs of the film being sold in the stores," he said.
"Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros)" is a coming-of-age film about a 12-year-old gay boy torn between his love for a young policeman and his loyalty to his family.
"What I'd like to see is a wider cross-pollination between mainstream films and independent films, so that they both gain from each other's strengths," said Jardin.
A week after the Cinemalaya film festival, more vocal members of the audience--including film critics and journalists--are still asking questions about the jurors choices for filmfest winners. Questions like, "Why did '100' win the most awards but fail to win Best Film?"; "How come audience favorites' 'Boses' and 'Concerto' failed to win even a single award?
It's very difficult to answer those questions, and perhaps, no one can give answers that will satisfy everyone who complains.
But what's amazing here is this: we've never cared this much about our films, indie or mainstream--which can only be good news for filmmakers and everyone else in Philippine cinema. "Boses" filmmaker Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil has also given her side on how her film fared at the Cinemalaya.
Maybe the reviews coming out in www.abs-cbnnews.com can help generate more interest and more discussion.
