For the love of Philippine cinema
Credit to Author: Iza Iglesias, TMT| Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2019 10:04:55 +0000
The Sunday Times Magazine’s annual guide to the Metro Manila Film Festival
Christmas is just three days away, which means the yearly Metro Manila Film Festival is also upon the Filipino public. For 45 years now, this holiday event has become a tradition among family and friends to troop to cinemas nationwide to be entertained while supporting a truly talented industry that will always need a boost in every way, without competition from big Hollywood titles.
For a quick flashback before The Sunday Times Magazine goes on to present this year’s main titles, the MMFF was officially established to recognize “the role of the film industry in providing artistic depictions of both this country’s stories and history.” This raison d’être was detailed by festival organizers, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), in 1974 but apparently an earlier version and purpose for the cinematic event had already existed since 1966. Initiated by Mayor Antonio Villegas, the Manila Film Festival’s original objective was to get “first run” theaters to screen Filipino-made movies since these premiere cinemas only ran American movies. As such, local movies could only be seen in second tier cinemas.
Quite successful in its goal, the Manila Film Festival eventually enjoined the rest of the cities within the metro to showcase all-Filipino movies from December 25 to January 8 every year. Happily, through the decades and the evolving artistry of the Filipino, the MMFF has impressively risen year after year, ultimately hitting the P1-billion mark at the box office, thereby giving the movie industry a shot in the arm every time the calendar year starts over.
In fact, last January 8, a day after the official run of the 2018 MMFF concluded, the MMDA announced that the 44th edition recorded the highest ever box office gross in the entire history of the film festival earning a total P1.060 billion. The previous record was held by the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival which earned P10 million less than the 2018 edition.
Fast forward to 2019, expect a bigger and bolder MMFF as it simultaneously celebrates 100 years of Philippine cinema.
Here then are the eight official entries of the 45th Metro Manila Film Festival, all opening on Christmas Day.