By its very name

The annual Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival doesn’t happen until July, but this early, the event—a much-anticipated entry in the cultural calendar of many Filipinos hungry for thoughtful, quality local movies—has been hogging the news, albeit not for very good reasons. In the past weeks, a nasty public fight has broken out between the festival organizing committee led by chair Laurice Guillen and monitoring head Robbie Tan, and budding filmmaker Emerson Reyes. It was the disqualification of Reyes’ movie from the competition that sparked the war of words on social networks and the media, and immediately roused a number of well-known directors and film commentators to take his side.

“MNL 143,” Reyes’ planned movie, was disqualified because of his insistence on casting actors Allan Paule and Joy Viado to play the lead roles in the film. Guillen explained in a letter to the director that the committee deemed Paule and Viado “not suitable to the material.”  Tan, who, before becoming a Cinemalaya mover, was best known as the producer behind the now-inactive Seiko Films and its prolific output of soft-core movies, reportedly wanted the more comely actors Victor Neri and Francine Prieto to headline Reyes’ film.

That Reyes stood his ground on his casting choices and got booted out of a festival that proclaims itself a champion of independent filmmaking has struck many as odd and ultimately questionable. Local cineastes—many of whom have long despaired of mainstream Pinoy cinema’s prefab products of vapid melodramas, stale comedies and derivative romantic flicks, and who have found renewed hope in Cinemalaya’s growing track record in discovering new filmmaking talents with fresh, audacious takes on Filipino stories—probably were most surprised to know that Cinemalaya organizers have, in effect, veto power over how a first-time filmmaker could make his or her own movie.

This is a festival, after all, that claims a lofty, well-articulated mission: “In the spirit of independent expression, the Cinemalaya Awards seeks to discover, encourage and honor the cinematic works of Filipino filmmakers that boldly articulate and freely interpret the Filipino experience with fresh insight and artistic integrity.” How, then, does that square with a director, awarded the much-sought-after P500,000 seed grant to jump-start his creative vision, being hamstrung in trying to accomplish that vision? And, worse, when he sticks to his guns, anchoring his hopes on the festival’s boldly stated commitment to “independent expression” and “artistic integrity,” getting punished for it with the ultimate censure—a scuttling of the means to complete and exhibit his work?

Tan protested that his casting preferences were only a suggestion, and intended largely to raise the movie’s commercial prospects. But that rationale doesn’t quite cut it. If they were merely suggestions, then it was Reyes’ prerogative to accept them or not. But his defiance has now cost him a berth in the festival. Clearly, the recommendations were a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Also, to impose the requirement of box-office sanctification on a Cinemalaya movie seems to run against the very grain of what the festival is about—that its films need not pander to the commercial and conventional, that they be free to tell their stories honestly and engagingly without having to reduce themselves to the usual cineplex commodity.

Commercial gain is the sine qua non of the rest of mainstream Pinoy cinema, and Cinemalaya is supposed to be different. But is it?

Writing online, director Erik Matti has raised other troubling issues, including the organizing committee chair’s purported cornering of the market “for all the subtitling of the Cinemalaya entries.” Said Matti: “It’s like city mayors bidding for road construction projects and awarding it to their own construction companies. Shameful!”

Inquirer columnist Nestor Torre has come out in Cinemalaya’s defense, saying that “its record speaks for itself.” Quite right. But precisely for that reason—for its increasingly irreplaceable legacy in the form of such cinematic gems as “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros,” “Jay,” “Engkwentro,” or “Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa”—what a tragedy it would be if Cinemalaya compromised itself, toyed with its avowed bedrock of  principle and integrity, and turned its back on the very name it carries.