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Friday, November 15, 2002
RP film trade threatened by pirated VCDs
DUE TO the rampant trade of pirated video products in the country, the film industry is fast losing its viability, the Philippine Producers Association said.
Manuel Nuqui, President of Philippine Producers Association, said during the Club 888 Press Forum yesterday that there has been no growth in the local film industry since the boom of piracy.
With the growing piracy trade, he said local film producers are not into cost cutting measures but they opted not to produce films for fear of not being able to recoup their investments.
"Instead of cutting the production, they choose not to produce because if they ride on the bandwagon but they are not sure they can recover their investments, wala rin. In terms of economics, there's really no growth in the industry right now," he said.
He said that the piracy problem has pushed 20 percent of the Philippine theaters to shut down operations last year. Sixty percent of the theaters are currently surviving.
"It's really killing the industry. We have lost a lot of theaters to piracy problem," Nuqui said, adding that film producers have reduced income by 30 to 40 percent.
Most of the theaters that have folded up, he said, are in Metro Manila where competition is stiff. He said film producers have to recoup about 60 to 70 percent of their investments when they release films in Metro Manila, otherwise, they will incur huge losses.
"If you can recoup 30 to 40 percent of investments in Metro Manila you can be sure that you at least break even because the provinces can carry the balance of the load. But then a lot of theaters there have already closed, yung natitira na lang yung sa mga malls," he said.
He said this is the reason why the film industry has to widen its promotions in order to get the much-needed boost.
Foreign filmmakers, he added, are also affected by piracy as it has become a global problem. They are in fact spending a lot of investment to combat piracy.
But Nuqui said local film industry still manages to improve on the technical aspects of filmmaking.
"If we are really talking about quality we can do a share. But business tells you that is not viable to have production with excellent quality.
When you talk of quality you also have to consider cost so papano kami mag-invest kung alam naming malulugi kami," he said.
This year, the Metro Manila Film Festival Committee, will embark on a nationwide promotions of the nine local films participating in this year's festival. The festival will be simultaneously held in Manila, Cebu and Davao on December 25.
Nuqui, also chair of the committee, said that the nationwide film festival aims to perk up the Philippine film industry by urging provincial theaters to screen the nine locally produced films.
"Both city governments of Davao and Cebu as well as the local theaters here have agreed not to show foreign movies during the festival to give way to the local movies," he said.
The committee will be bringing in nine movie entries here with their corresponding lead stars. A parade of the stars will be held on December 25. OCE
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