The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Despite documentary films finally finding spaces, however gradually, in commercial circuit screenings in the Philippines and elsewhere, their filmmakers still find it hard to make the genre more popular and accessible to most viewers.
“It will take a village…” said feisty and award-winning doc maker Baby Ruth Villarama as if saying it indeed costs a lot, money and otherwise the genre is totally available and acceptable to the pop audience.
At the talkback session after the screening at the Mint College in McKinley Bonifacio Global City of the Singaporean doc film “Night Shift,” a foray into the invasion of Ukraine by Russia directed by Megumi Lim, Villarama lamented on the fate local doc films have been suffering.
One of her recent works, “Food Delivery,” an account on the plight of Filipino fisherfolk being barred from fishing by Chinese marine authorities and the tension in the West Philippine Sea between the Philippine Coast Guard and the Chinese militia, was banned by the Chinese government from showing in an international film festival although she had overcome the censorship from a foreign entity. The other documentarist-panelists like Che Andes (“Padanggo sa Hukay,” “Maria” etc.) and Ditsi Carolino (“Minsan Lang Sila Bata,” “Made in the Philippines” etc.) also aired their grievances on the sad experiences of documentaries but still, they continue making doc films. (Boy Villasanta)