The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) was established with the best of intentions – invigorate the local cinema industry by providing a venue for film makers, writers, and producers to showcase exemplary work that captures the spirit of Philippine culture, the interest and fancy of the local audience, and to push the envelope of Philippine cinema. But over the decades, it has lost sight of this mandate and objective and has become a parody of formulaic and uninspired output.

The trend towards independently-produced and curated films over the past few years have birthed some of the most exciting (and, once in a while, dismal) film festivals in the country. With a carte blanche of inspiration as its impetus; writers, producers, directors, and filmmakers have come-up with some of the most memorable films in the last two decades – the Cinemalaya and CinemaOne Originals being two of the most notable stalwarts of the movement.

In the end, the MMFF has lost both its meaning, relevance, and mandate to represent quality local films. Its yearly roster of re-hashed, regurgitated, and humdrum films indicates a lack of insight into the audience’s interest. Banking on its unquestioned monopoly over the cinema houses throughout the holiday season, this absence of healthy competition have left the big-name and big-ticket production houses to annually churn out one of the following blasé themes: a triptych horror series or some form of supernatural terror fest, a tongue-in-cheek rom-com with the most recent and popular love-team as its top-billers, some form of adventure-format or magical sojourn based on a superficial premise, the classic struggle of good versus evil, a farcical slapstick comedy, a semi-biographical action flick, or some gritty drama with the un-evolving theme of third-world struggles.

It’s no wonder and surprise then that discerning moviegoers respond more to indie-films and film fests than they do to the MMFF. Primarily because patronizing the sort of films they have released lately borders on insulting the capacity of their audience to accept, digest, and appreciate more complex, uncomfortable, or extreme themes.

It’s a challenge, then, to the MMFF organizers; and indirectly to the producers, to push the boundaries of film-making in the future, and produce content that is truly a zeitgeist of Philippine culture, a tranche de vie of the sentiments of a more and more discerning, vocal, and discriminating public.

The premise of every artform and medium is insight, perspective. Without this, it is nothing more than glorified nonsense.

Cinéma vérité (/ˈsɪnɨmə vɛrɨˈteɪ/; French: [sinema veʁite], truthful cinema) is a style of documentary filmmaking, invented by Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda and influenced by Robert Flaherty’s films. It combines improvisation with the use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind crude reality.

"Some things, once you've loved them, become yours forever. And if you try to let them go, they only circle back, and return to you. They become part of who you are. Or they destroy you." 

- Allen Ginsberg, Kill Your Darlings (2014)

When I was younger, influenced by the naivety of inexperience, I used to believe time was therapeutic. That everything is made easier and palatable with patience. And pain fades away with memory, like brush strokes on vellum.

But time is neutral, and it can easily fade a memory as much as magnify it. Resolution, like the depth of an experience or a memory, is independent of how long you dwell on it. No amount of wallowing will make the pill go down easier.

In that regard, we're slaves to history. It is both what feeds our hope for sunnier times, and the nimbus that clouds our present; propelling us in the struggle and abating our potential growth.

Experience is a good mentor, but insight is the better one. We often fail to recognize that what we go through in life is rendered worthless if it doesn't educate us.

Noone comes out of grief unscathed; the scars are meant not just to deform but also to inform us. Time does not pause from its glacial procession. It is only us who choose to be still, to stagnate, in these valuable and long-gone moments.

When a clock stops ticking, its gears do not cease to exist. They're still there, needing to be rewound.

This, here, is that.





This entry is for the Round Table Challenge, and was done entirely (including the photo-graphics) on the phone with Google Keep, PhotoGrid, and Blogger for Android.

Hello Aya,


"Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife."
- Franz Schubert

Forgive my inaniloquence, as this wonderful news have come at such a surprise. Your nudiustertian decision is well appreciated, and has left me nothing but aghast at this elating development. The years have been unkind to those of the intelligensia, and discontent plagues our plight with the persistence of a keloidal scar, but that shouldn't deter us from seeking that elusive love. Serendipity is kind to those whom fate have been harsh to. I am glad you've found yours, from this immense sea of strangers, at a foreign land no less. 

Allow me to express my heartfelt well wishes for the both of you. Nothing of value comes in this life without effort, and struggle. The struggle informs this value, makes the honey sweeter, the journey greater, and the and the sun a tad more warmer (and kinder). Maybe some day I will get to meet this man. May you bring joy and support, love and understanding, and above all trust and respect to each other. 

We must find happiness where we can. It is the only noble way to love.


Les deseo a ambos todo lo mejor en su compromiso y para el futuro!

Salud!
Red

We’re all damaged, you and I. No matter how sheltered or unkind fate has been with you; we all have missing pieces, minute cracks and fissures that pepper our self. You might be unaware of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. The broken shards, held together by the social graces; the composed demeanor masking the silent screams, that awkward laughter that hides the anxious fumbling. We can’t be alive, and not be broken. But being broken isn’t the problem. Humanity’s injured consciousness is the price we pay for free will. Because free will precludes conflict and contradiction; we cannot be free without affording the same liberty to others. So you learn, along the way that being free means being disappointed.

resume rubbored reading...

Dear Blog,

I would like to apologize for my protracted absence. It has been a while since I’ve last posted anything noteworthy for you. For all its worth, this negligence has been primarily unintentional. I wish I could expound on the reasons more, but the cloud of doubt, uncertainty and anxiety looms over me like a shadow. A very large, menacing, and amorphous shadow.

resume rubbored reading...

To write seems futile, incomplete, unintelligible
thoughts that refuse to find voice, form, a message
scarcely scribbled, quickly discarded, drafted
in the silence of an ordeal 

unspoken.

There is comfort in indecision.

 Realizing, I am human after all.