SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

Metro Manila Film Festival

Christmas is the season for counting our blessings and the biggest blessing in sight for the local movie industry is the Metro Manila Film Festival, the oldest and most important film event that has brought life to the movie industry. Continuing the Manila Film Festival started in 1966 in the City of Manila, the Metro Manila Film Festival which took over in 1975 has annually provoked  a flurry of creative activity among movie producers. It may be said that producers who generally make mere movies during the year go out of their way to make films for the Festival. Even a partial list of films inspired by the Festival is as impressive as one can get. Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?, Minsa'y Isang Gamu-Gamo and Insiang (1976), Burlesk Queen, Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising and Inay (1977), Atsay and Rubia Servios (1978), Ina Ka Ng Anak Mo (1979), Brutal and Bona (1980), Kisapmata (1981), Himala and Moral (1982). Clearly, creative energies have been released by the Festival in the past. In 1983, the Festival has acquired a new dimension because of the Manila International Film Festival. Instead of merely aiming at the local market, the Metro Manila Film Festival looks at the foreign market. As a consequence, the criteria for entrance into the Festival have been slightly changed to gear them to the international market. The sub-criteria of the Festival follow from that general guideline.

1. Themes that portray positive realities without exploiting misery, desperation and the negative values that find no redemption.


2. Themes that seek to establish the Filipino identity of strength, perseverance and triumph over odds.


3. New and relatively unorthodox themes that will find universal appeal regardless of race, creed or religion.


 4. Themes that depict the rewards of struggle for betterment of life.

A fair look at the Festival, then involves not only art but also commerce. It promotes local movies, selling them not only as good artistic films, but as commercially viable films. The phenomenal box office success of films such as Brutal and Kisapmata which have no stars, hardly any sex or even action made lots of money primarily because they won awards for their artistic merits. In short, one way to make a film sell is to make a good film. Without any doubt, it is the Metro Manila Film Festival that has placed local movies on the cinema map.