The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Alvin I. Dacanay
Another scandal is shaking, rattling and rolling the 41st Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).
A growing number of members and supporters of the Philippine independent film community expressed their shock, dismay and outrage on social media on Saturday after the MMFF disqualified Erik Matti’s latest film Honor Thy Father from the festival’s Best Picture race.
The thriller, written by prize-winning screenwriter Michiko Yamamoto and starring John Lloyd Cruz and Meryll Soriano, focuses on a married couple facing financial ruin and the threat of violence because of their involvement in a Ponzi scheme.
It was first screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, where it received much acclaim.
In the digital copy of a letter dated December 26, 2015 and posted on—and later deleted from—Matti’s Facebook page, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and MMFF overall chairman Emerson S. Carlos told Honor Thy Father producer Ronald Stephen Monteverde that, “after careful and thorough deliberation, the Manila Metro Film Festival Executive Committee has disqualified” the film “from the selection of the Best Picture Category of the MMFF Awards 2015” for failing to disclose its “participation [in] the Cinema One Originals Festival 2015 as the opening film.”
However, the Cinema Bravo Facebook page posted Carlos’s letter placed alongside that of Honor Thy Father associated producer Stacey Bascon to MMFF executive committee chairman Jesse Ejercito, informing him that the film would open the Cinema One Originals Festival.
Bascon’s letter was written on November 5, three days before that festival opened.
The disqualification followed reports that some moviehouses are pulling out Honor Thy Father after showing it on Christmas Day, the beginning of the two-week festival.
“What is this? Kawawa naman lalo ang #honorthyfather sa #mmff2015, di na nga pinapalabas sa sinehan, madidisqualify pa,” Matti lamented in a post on his Facebook account that has since been deleted, but not before it was shared on Twitter.
“Lahat tayo, na-disqualify. Lahat tayo binabalewala. Lahat tayo, ginagawang tanga,” film reviewer Philbert Ortiz Dy tweeted.
“Dafuq?!” local film-festival organizer Ed Lejano commented on a Facebook post on the latest controversy.
“I can’t believe they did that to Honor Thy Father. Makes my blood boil,” Palanca award-winning fictionist Ian Rosales Casocot wrote on his Facebook account.
Hours after Carlos’s letter was circulated online, Monteverde posted a statement on Honor Thy Father‘s Facebook page, refuting the MMDA chairman’s allegation that he didn’t disclose the film’s participation in the Cinema One festival.
“If you will recall, Honor Thy Father was a late addition to the MMFF 2015 lineup. It had been rejected by their selection committee when the lineup was announced in June. On October 23 our film was officially offered a slot after an entry pulled out. By then we had already accepted CinemaOne’s invitation to screen as [its] opening film,” the statement read.
“We informed the MMFF secretariat, both by e-mail and by phone, about this. We complied with their request for a letter from CinemaOne head Ronald Arguelles attesting that the screening was non-revenue generating and by invitation only. We have all of this on record,” it added.
“Secondly, each MMFF entry is allowed a maximum of two premieres. Our CinemaOne screening would be our premiere.
“Let me repeat: we complied with all the MMFF’s requirements; we did not commit any non-disclosure of any kind; no MMFF rule was ever violated by Honor Thy Father.”
The producer then questioned the “reasons, the timing, and the means employed” in disqualifying Matti’s film.
“Where is due process in all of this?” Monteverde asked. “Are they (MMFF executive committee) merely being good scouts and sticklers for the rules, even when no rule was broken? Or is there some other reason? Why disqualify the movie only from the Best Picture category and not all categories? Whose interests are being protected by this last-minute decision?”
Posted with the statement are digital copies of Carlos’s and Bascon’s letters, as well as Arguelles’s letter, dated Nov. 4.
The disqualification came a day after it was reported that moviegoers intent on watching expected MMFF topgrosser My Bebe Love in some cinemas found their tickets mysteriously replaced with those for Star Cinema’s rival entry Beauty and the Bestie.
My Bebe Love, which is topbilled by comedians Vic Sotto and Ai-Ai de las Alas, features popular actors Alden Richards and Maine “YayaDub” Mendoza, better known together as AlDub.
Beauty and the Bestie, meanwhile, stars top ABS-CBN talents Coco Martin and Vice Ganda.
The MMFF has already posted a statement on the matter on its Facebook page.
“The Metro Manila Film Festival, after looking into the ticket-swapping issue, strongly denies the existence of such and is enjoining all the stakeholders of the festival to be responsible in expressing their sentiments, especially on social media,” the MMFF statement said.
“The objective of the MMFF is to promote the local film industry, and this baseless issue will only sideline the true intent and purpose of the festival. Let’s continue supporting all the entries of the MMFF 2015,” it added.