The Wheel and Axle

This year’s Metro Manila Film Festival has certainly proven that the MMFF can have quality films and still be an astounding success despite what naysayers proclaim. The awards given out during the Gabi ng Parangal last night have also shown just how committed this year’s organizers are to truly honoring only the best of the best: the truly deserving, the people who value art and culture.

And for the first time in a long time, the word parangal means something once again for this festival, and it all actually feels… right! All the awardees just feel… right, no questions asked.

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Metro Manila Film Festival 2016: Some Spoilers!

Trans life is still largely misunderstood by most of society, especially Filipino society, which is ironic because our pre-Hispanic culture had very different views of gender roles. Unfortunately, colonization and Christianization suppressed our ancestral paradigms, leading to binary gender thought. Even with the increasing liberalization of LGBT politics in the last two decades, the “T” remains to be a constantly misunderstood segment of the community, with transwomen often mistakenly conflated with or confused for cisgender gay men who simply want to cross-dress.

While the topic of gender can take up entire books to thoroughly discuss, media has tried to bridge the gap – sometimes successfully (Transamerica, for example), sometimes not so much (countless awful examples I shan’t go into). Locally, there have even been fewer, and with some exceptions, representation has largely been relegated to funny (sometimes offensive) sidekicks.

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Metro Manila Film Festival 2016: Some Spoilers!

Erik Matti has not failed me so far in the last few years: 2012’s Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles and its MMFF 2014 sequel Kubot, 2013’s On The Job, and last year’s controversial MMFF entry Honor Thy Father. All highly-praised, all acclaimed, all fantastic.

He does not fail me this year with his MMFF entry, the horror film Seklusyon.

I confess to having fears that this movie would be formula Pinoy horror – you know, where some mysterious theme (weddings, bagwas, faith healing, SMS, etc.) starts killing off cast members one by one, usually in increasingly gruesome and creative ways. Here in Seklusyon, after all, we have an array of would-be priests ripe for the picking.

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Metro Manila Film Festival 2016: Some Spoilers!

The original Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank was a hilarious sleeper hit that echoed the unexpected triumph of Kimmy Dora, the film that launched the awesome Eugene Domingo from funny sidekick into comedic superstar. In many ways, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank – which was also our entry for the 2011 Oscars for Best Foreign Film – brought her full circle, for in it, Eugene portrayed an exaggerated and fictionalized version of herself, and who else can say they truly made it but those who have managed to satirize themselves and capture audiences?

Now, full circle comes around once more with Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2: Forever Is Not Enough, the still-hilarious sequel that brings Eugene back to true form as she once again lampoons herself.

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These are the posters for this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival. Judging by these alone, you can tell this year’s entries are really dead-set on showing creativity and quality.

Sure, they may not all end up as fantastic as we would want them to be (but of course we hope so), but just for sheer commitment towards veering away from trash and challenging the establishment, they’re already winners in my book.

This year, finally after such a long time, the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) shifts back its focus to actual quality films rather than mere commercial fare. Of course, the final judgment on the quality of the films will happen once they are shown, but a quick glance at the list of eight films that made the cut shows an array of out-of-the-box choices that hasn’t been seen in the festival in a couple of decades.

You see, at some point in the last ten to twenty years, the MMFF became a mere money-making venture, quality be damned. I have no idea at what point this change towards blatant commercialization happened, but it was definitely a contributing factor to the deterioration of quality film-making in the country. This is not to say there have been no good MMFF films in the last decade or so because there certainly have been. However, the garbage has far exceeded the diamonds when it came to the MMFF in recent years.

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