ON December 4-10, the public can once again watch locally produced independent films as the Mindanao Film Festival 2013 presents this year’s record-breaking crop of 55 entries.
To be shown at the Gaisano Mall Cinema 5, the MFF 2013 organized by the Mindanao Film and Television Development Foundation Inc. and supported by the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is Davao’s contribution to filmmaking as an art.
This year’s Mindanao Film Festival will be exhibiting the highest number of films in its 10-year history.
“We have 55 films which will be exhibited in the festival these includes three feature length productions and 52 short films,” said Rudolph Alama, festival director of MFF 2013.
The 55 films eclipsed last year’s number of 39 films. There were a record number of submissions from different parts of Mindanao.
Just like last year, Mindanao Film Festival will feature films from Davao City, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Butuan and Zamboanga.
“This goes to show that regional filmmaking is growing and that growth is being sustained,” Alama said.
Guerilla Roots
The MFF started as the output of the Guerilla Filmmaking Workshop launched by local filmmakers Dax Canedo and Drei Boquiren in 2003. Their objective then was to help teach the rudiments of filmmaking to anyone who had the interest.
The films produced in the workshop were shown in what they called the Guerilla Filmmaking Festival, which got the Gaisano Mall Cinema as its willing partner for its two-day run. Gaisano Mall Cinema has since remained as its yearly venue.
On its third year, the Guerilla Film Festival took on the theme Mindanao Film Festival as it opened to not just the annual workshop participants but also to alumni and other filmmakers based in Mindanao who would want to join.
Thus, by 2006, the name Guerilla Film Festival was put to rest and the annual event went on to carry the name, Mindanao Film Festival. Counting its years as the Guerilla Film Festival (11 years), or even under the Mindanao Film Festival name (nine), the event gets the distinction of being the longest running independent film festival in the country.
It’s been a struggle, filmmakers Alama and Orvil Bantayan said during the first FreeMedia ArtTalk forum at the Park Inn by Radisson last November 5. Each film is produced through private funds, their own pockets most of the time.
In the past few years, the festival became the recipient of the National Endowment Fund for Culture and the Arts (NEFCA) released thru the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in recognition of it being a regional filmmaking center.
The co-founder of the film festival, who is now president of the Mindanao Film and TV Foundation, Dax Canedo, also sits as a member of the NCCA cinema committee.
Still, greater support is needed for this endeavor to continue and tap the storytelling and filmmaking potentials of Mindanaoans.
Level Up
This is what the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) through its coordinator Peter Philip Lat would want to explore with the local filmmakers.
“The problem with filmmakers here is they do not know how to market their films,” he said. As in any endeavor, marketing holds the key to sustainability. Otherwise, the industry will remain as a hobby whose audience is limited to the number of days the festival runs.
Next year, he said, FDCP intends to bring in film people who can teach the marketing, but most importantly story-telling.
“Indie film is often associated with sex, gore, because that’s easier to put together,” Lat said.
FDCP is also bringing in multi-awarded indie filmmaker Brillante Mendoza to reach out to those interested in filmmaking.
Both Alama and Bantayan concurred that many locally produced indie films are into sex and gore, and very few really are able to tap the heartwarming stories of Mindanao. But the few who do are showing great potentials.
Just last week, Davao filmmaker Arnel Mardoquio bagged five awards in the Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival held last November 16 at the ABS-CBN Dolphy Theater in Quezon City.
His latest film, “Riddles of my Homecoming,” got the Best Director, in the Currents Category of the awards ceremony, Best Music for fellow Dabawenya Gauss Obenza, the Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, and the Jury Award.
Fellow Dabawenyo filmmaker Sherad Anthony Sanchez won Best Film in CinemaOne in 2006 for his “Huling Balyan ng Buhi,” and in 2008 for his “Imburnal.”
More in Store
This year’s Mindanao Film Festival will banner the theme “style nato” to celebrate the diverse filming styles of its regional filmmakers and as part of the theme, this will be the first time MFF will be opening an animation category, Alama said.
Despite the hurdles the MFF has to go through to organize the festival every year, the movers of this industry get their pats on the backs when given due recognition.
“In 2011 NCCA chose Davao to host its Cinemarehiyon Film Festival -- which is a showcase of different regional films, the first venue outside Manila -- to recognize the MFTDFI efforts particularly in holding MFF which resulted in Davao having one of the most active regional film movements in the country,” Alama said.
The complete list of films and the scheduled showing will be announced later as the MFTDFI is still finalizing the activity.
Its opening film, on December 4 at 8 p.m., Gaisano Mall Cinema 5, will be a classic that seems like an echo of present-day events: The Moises Padilla Story directed by Gerardo de Leon, released in 1961 with Leopoldo Salcedo and Joseph Estrada as lead stars.
The story revolves around the rule of Governor Rafael Lacson in the early 1950s in Negros Occidental during which a principled Negrense, Moises Padilla decided to stand up against the governor’s tyranny. He challenged Lacson in the political arena and ended up being tortured and killed by the Governor's private army, an event which eventually led to the warlord's downfall.