The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Story and photo by Alvin I. Dacanay
Actress Liza Diño, the new chairwoman of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), aims to forge partnerships with industry and arts-and-culture organizations and promote the production of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) films, as well as streamline or strengthen her agency’s programs, during her three-year term.
These add to her goals of securing recognition of the film industry as one with protectionist policies, empowering regional film communities, addressing film marketing and distribution problems, educating and developing film audiences, and attracting more foreign film productions to the country, which the FDCP revealed recently.
On the sidelines of the recent media briefing on the 19th Cine Europa film festival, Diño indicated that the FDCP’s Sineng Pambansa (National Cinema) flagship program would be revamped or redirected toward the agency’s current thrust of nurturing an empowered and educated film community.
She noted that other arts-and-culture agencies have done much to empower the film industry, citing the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and its annual Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and its Cinema Rehiyon film festival as examples.
“Why not help and support these [agencies], so that [these] existing film festivals” will be strengthened, Diño said.
She said she hoped the FDCP can partner with NCCA and Cinema Rehiyon in making the festival more inclusive by strengthening it, “helping in the marketing and promotion of [it], and really eyeing different regions in encouraging them in coming up with their own films in their own [languages].”
As for the CCP, Diño said she would like it and her agency to team up in bringing Cinemalaya films to the FDCP Cinematheques in the different regions, noting that the celebrated indie-film festival expanded to Cebu this year.
“Alam ko na ang mga tao from the regional communities, gustong-gusto mapanood ang mga pelikula natin na pinapalabas dito sa Manila, and they feel bad na parang lahat ay concentrated dito [I know that people from regional communities really want to watch the films being shown in Manila, and they feel bad that everything seems to be concentrated here],” she added.
Diño said she would continue her predecessor Briccio Santos’ efforts to restore classic Filipino films, adding that archiving is so important. She is looking, however, to have those efforts done here instead, since many Filipino film classics were restored overseas.
“There are a lot of local companies [that] do restorations, as well. I hope we can do it here. Why not help our local industry and partner with them when it comes to the restoration of films?” she said.
Married to singer-actor and National Youth Commission Chairman Aiza Seguerra, the FDCP chairwoman said one of the things she hoped to push forward during her—and her husband’s—term is LGBT rights and awareness.
“Maybe we can come up with films or a film festival that will not just… explore our relationships, but the everyday situations [of the] LGBT community [here], from discrimination to abuse to [the] injustices [done to them],” Diño said.
“Napakalalim at napakalawak pa ang mga bagay na pinagdadaanan ng LGBT community dito [The things the LGBT community go through here are deep and wide, and they have] not been addressed,” she noted.
“If, somehow, these films can affect in restoring respect and compassion toward the community, then for me, I think…we have achieved that goal,” Diño said.