MMFF: Metro Manila Filmfest Farce

The Metro Manila Film Festival is over. The winners were proclaimed three days after the festival opened last Dec. 25 and once again they had some funny choices.

The acronym MMFF has truly taken on a new meaning — the Metro Manila Filmfest Farce. Blame this on the bright boys running this annual event who insist that the selection of the Top 3 Best Picture winners should be based partly on the box-office receipts and not merely on the film’s merits. It’s really all about money, money, money.

Going back to its history, the festival was founded by the late Manila Mayor Antonio J. Villegas to showcase outstanding Filipino movies. When Joseph Estrada, then still San Juan Mayor, expanded it to become the Metro Manila Film Festival in 1975, he stuck basically to the original idea of giving quality local pictures a chance to shine during the duration of the festival.

In the early ’80s, Marita Manuel suggested the staging of the awards night on Dec. 27 — two days after opening — to help the Best Picture winners improve their chances at the box-office. No, the winners weren’t selected based on their performance at the box-office. Quality was the only consideration.

A couple of years ago, changes were made. The Gabi ng Parangal was still staged days after the opening, but the selection of the Best Picture winners was based on box-office take. Sure, they still had a set of judges to give the choices a semblance of credibility. But in choosing the Top 3 Best Pictures, only 50 percent of the judges’ votes were taken into account. The remaining 50 percent came from how the entry fared at the tills.

The first time this was done, top-grosser Enteng Kabisote won Best Picture and even its producers were too embarrassed to accept the award. But after the festival, it was the organizers who were red-faced because in the end, it was Star Cinema’s Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo, which should have been declared Best Picture in the first place, that eventually became the biggest earner in that year’s MMFF. Did they take the trophy back from Enteng Kabisote? To begin with, the Enteng Kabisote people didn’t ask for it. The organizers were really just plain stupid — and greedy.

And they have amnesia, too. They forgot about that Enteng Kabisote fiasco and so in the recently-concluded 35th Metro Manila Film Festival, they once again chose the Best Picture winners based on box-office performance and came up with Ang Panday as first Best Picture, I Love You, Goodbye, second Best Picture and, horrors (not necessarily because it is a horror-comedy), Ang Darling Kong Aswang in third place.

Admittedly, the festival entries this time around weren’t really all that outstanding. But there were a few good ones — basically just two.

Having watched all seven entries, allow me to rank the entries according to quality — and not how these fared at the box-office. And so here are my Top 3 winners:

1) Mano Po 6 — It may not even get a Best Picture nomination when the other award-giving bodies honor works for last year in the coming months — what with all the excellent indie films released in 2009. But it could have been voted Best Picture in the last MMFF if only box-office performance was not included among the criteria in the voting process. And it was a crime that it wasn’t even included among the Top 3 Best Picture winners.

Unfortunately for Mano Po 6, it was well, No. 6 in the box-office ranking when the awards night was staged. The Best Picture trophy could have boosted its ticket sales manifold had it not been for that stupid revision of MMFF rules.

2) Ang Panday — The MMFF organizers were lucky that this year’s champion at the tills was Panday because when it won first Best Picture (quality and box-office performance combined), it was very acceptable as the top winner. This is the reason why no one shouted fiasco in the last MMFF edition.

Ang Panday is surely no Enteng Kabisote. On the contrary, it is one of the most technically polished and visually impressive films ever produced locally. Even if Mano Po 6 is the best entry for me, Ang Panday is still a very close second in my list and I’m very happy for its victory.

3) I Love You, Goodbye — Was this really a work by Laurice Guillen? Or was that the composite output of Star Cinema’s creative department where everyone has a say — from whoever is the head of this division and probably even down to the delivery boy who brings their pizza during staff meetings?

Technically, I have no problem with the film. Even some of the performances are outstanding: Angelica Panganiban, Gabby Concepcion, Derek Ramsay and Liza Lorena. Kim Chiu is also brilliant, but she is underutilized and her talent practically wasted. On screen, she seems to be saying: “I can do more, guys, so keep them coming!”

The problem with this movie is that the viewer has difficulty getting involved with the situation of the screen characters because their problems in the story are all so SHALLOW. And what was that ending all about? All throughout the movie, Liza Lorena as Gabby’s mother and Kim Chiu as Gabby’s daughter hate and despise Angelica and then, the heroine puts up her own restaurant and the two bitches of Eastwick are nice to her all of a sudden. How did that happen? Unless there is some truth to the old wives’ tale that if you want to win the affection of people, try spitting at their food. While they didn’t show Angelica do that when she served Liza and Kim their orders that is the only logical reason I can think of for their change of attitude toward this intruder to their family.

(Next: Ranking the rest of the filmfest entries based on quality.)