LEAD-IN! Ilawod, an Ian Veneracion and Iza Calzado starrer opening on January 18, is a fresh horror story as it features a new source of terror!... Diana Meneses hosts the new reality show The Fiercest of Them All where America's Next Top Model meets Survivor!... Come to think of it, the Selection Committee initiated the trouble of 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival Oro!... Ricky Lo, Entertainment editor of The Philippine Star, is finally on Facebook!... It will not be any sooner that Ang Larawan, The Movie, the principal photography of which was in 2016 and headlined by Rachel Alejandro, Ogie Alcasid, Paulo Avelino, Zsa Zsa Padilla and Joanna Ampil, would be shown before September!... Mocha's appointment as board member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board was announced by Malacañang and picked up by media, but Virgilio Almario's election as National Commission for Culture and the Arts chair was basically silent and not accorded with the same attention.
2016 METRO MANILA FILM FESTIVAL INSIGHTS. With its conversion into finished film entry submissions as main accomplishment, the 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) failed to prove that so-called quality films, loosely classified as independently produced features, are the answer to the annual Christmas film fest's perceived woes and excluding mainstream films and its ticket sales-friendly actors did not prove worthwhile.
It, in fact, largely removed the spirit of celebration from the MMFF. All of the eight entries of the 2016 festival were supposed to be quality films so how could the variances in sales performance be explained? Advertising did it!
The top three rankers in ticket sales (Die Beautiful; Seklusyon; Vince and Kath and James) relied heavily on television advertising that cost P700,000 per spot. The rest (Saving Sally; Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2; Sunday Beauty Queen; Oro; and Kabisera) were deliberate non-advertisers due to lack of resources in true indie practice. This naturally favored entries with links to networks.
Most glaring were the critical ratings of entries. Oro and Seklusyon got Grade B, while the rest favored with a Grade A from the Cinema Evaluation Board were award winners. But Seklusyon got the most trophies at the MMFF's Gabi ng Parangal.
Ang Babae sa Septic Tank 2 and Saving Sally relied heavily on social media to promote.
How did the orbiters fare at their job? There was a clear effort for the 2016 MMFF to mislead. Without a clear basis, organizers had proclaimed the filmfest to be a "success."
It purposely made the 2016 MMFF a 10-day filmfest instead of the traditional 14-day run. It resorted to extending the festival up to January 7 to even up with the previous edition, some entries even discounting ticket prices.
And when there was some sort of understandable basis, it opted to report ticket sales figures divided into "Metro Manila" and "Provincial" groups. This has never been done in the festival's entire history. It seems organizers were direly avoiding comparison of its lower sales with previous years' higher figures.
With such spindoctoring, how could its pronouncements be deemed reliable?
So who profited from the 2016 MMFF? The TV networks!
If the MMFF wants to retain its credibility and viability, Lead suggests maintaining the finished film requirement and the return to non-bias of mainstream films as they are what attracts families with children. This was the reason the 2016 MMFF lost in ticket sales on the first and second days, traditionally the best-selling days.
Such entries will always have the advantage of expensive television advertising that indie films could hardly afford. If the MMFF does not want to maintain this status quo, then it must regulate the use of TV advertising for filmfest to be fair game to indie features.
As you cannot regulate viewers' satisfaction without disastrous effect such as what it just experienced, a filmfest cannot be all films about family troubles, social injustice and dark secrets. Lead then supports Sen. Tito Sotto's call for indie films to have its own filmfest of which there are several already that continue to get popular support.
Films are meant to be watched, and without huge numbers of viewers willing to pay the ticket to make them profitable, such intentions turn useless.
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Advertising, not quality, was 2016 MMFF's cutting edge
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