Filmfest controversy

THE Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) is one annual activity that is often embroiled in controversy. Often, it swirls around the choice for awards among the entered films. This year, however, it is about the choice of the entries itself, and of the film “Oro,” which snagged the Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) Memorial Award but got bashed for a scene that showed a dog being slaughtered. The film was eventually pulled out from Metro Manila theaters even as its FPJ award was recalled.

Let us leave the choice of festival entries for now and tackle first the “Oro” case. I think one of the problems of the film director and the producer was their not being forthright about the issue. Apparently, they got rattled when the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (Paws) made noise about it. The other problem was basic: They forgot about Republic Act No. 10631 or the Animal Welfare Act of 1998 (which was amended by Republic Act No. 10631). Section 6 of the said law states:

“It shall be unlawful for any person to torture any animal, to neglect to provide adequate care, sustenance of shelter, or maltreat any animal or to subject any dog or horse to dogfights or horse-fights, kill or cause or procure to be tortured or deprived of adequate care, sustenance or shelter, or maltreat or use the same in research or experiments not expressly authorized by the Committee on Animal Welfare.”

Animal lovers rightly lashed out at the people behind “Oro,” a film about four miners massacred in Camarines Sur and which is apparently well-crafted as it garnered two other awards, best ensemble cast and best actress (for Irma Adlawan). I just hope people do not lose their sense of proportion, though. I mean, I agree with a post on Facebook describing as hypocritical the bashing of “Oro” for the dog slaughter while being silent over the extra-judicial killings in the country.

“Oro” is one of the eight “indie” films chosen to be exclusively shown in Metro Manila theaters for the film festival held every December of the year, easing out mainstream films churned by the coun- try's major film producers like Vice Ganda's “The Super Parental Guardians” and Vic Sotto's “Enteng Kabisote 10 and the Abangers.” The culprit is that in the criteria used, the 50 percent previously given to “commercial viability” was junked.

This came as a shock to the bigwigs in local filmdom, who did the next best thing, which was to preempt the opening of the MMFF by showing their movies before it. That, of course, affected the MMFF revenues even if the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) that organizes the festival won't admit it. This is aside from the fact that “indie” films, while long in quality, is short of budget and is thus not star-driven.

I think it's good that the MMDA has gone back to the original purpose of the MMFF, which is to showcase quality Filipino films. But I do not like placing a distinction between mainstream films and “indie” films. This can be done if major film producers strive to make quality films and “indie” filmmakers would learn from the experience of mainstream filmmakers in producing films that attract moviegoers.

Consider this: In the 1977 MMFF, the films that competed included Lino Brocka's “Inay,” Celso Ad. Castillo's “Burlesk Queen” and Mike de Leon's “Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising.” We know who Brocka, de Leon and Castillo were/are.

(khanwens@gmail.com/ twitter: @ khanwens)