The running theme among many of the entrants in the Filipino New Cinema section of the World Premieres Film Festival is a general lack of production values. Aside from An Kubo sa Kawayanan, which is head and shoulders above its competitors in this lineup, the movies included in this side section simply don't live up to the standards that one has come to expect from our festival offerings. Even when the film is relatively charming, as was the case with a couple of the films discussed in the first part of this report, the surfeit of production skill can be pretty distracting. This is the case as well with Will Fredo's Filemon Mamon, a musical comedy that tracks the struggles of an obese teenager as he prepares to be Andres Bonifacio in the school play. The movie's bouncy energy and good-hearted nature help carry it through a narrative that has a few too many elements. But the filmmaking just isn't good enough to make the whole thing work.
At best, one could generously see this production as something that might come from local television, with its flat visual compositions and overly basic film grammar. Musicals are tough, and tend to require a lot from the camera. This film just isn't capable of delivering on that front, and these musical interludes just don't look good enough. The performances are more than enthusiastic, and that gives the movie a huge overall boost. And there are sublime moments of surrealism that make the film more interesting than it might first seem. But the filmmaking needs to keep up its end of the deal, and help these actors get the best out of their efforts.
The tech thriller Maskara, directed by Genesis Nolasco, also falls short of the kind of production values the genre requires. It follows a reporter played by Ina Feleo who is investigating the truth behind a huge government project that promises to bring together the entire nation under one unified network. She is contacted by one of the network's designers, who dies under mysterious circumstances just moments after sending her three cryptic messages.
It falls apart pretty quickly. The film relies on digital compositing to depict the stuff that goes on screens, and it does a poor job of it. The graphics don't seem to be anchored to the real life objects, and they move in weird ways whenever the camera shifts positions. But the problems with this film go beyond the weak application of technique. As a thriller, it loses credibility pretty early on when a character asks our heroine, "do you Google?" It's clear at that point that the filmmakers have little experience with their subject matter, and the rest of the story reinforces that impression.
The last two films in this section, Jonah Añonuevo Lim's Sino Nga Ba Si Pangkoy Ong? and Carlos Morales' Piring are by far the worst in terms of technical capability. These films would have looked bad ten years ago. Today, it's hard to accept either film as being worthy of public exhibition. Sino Nga Ba Si Pangkoy Ong? feels like it could have been done by high school students over a weekend. And Piring is the kind of overwrought poverty film that forgets about reality and becomes a strange parody of itself. People left the theater laughing, even though what they had just watched was presumably meant to be a serious dissection of the inherent injustices present in Filipino society.
All in all, this section of the festival didn’t work out very well. To be fair, this is just the first year of Filipino New Cinema, and there’s certainly room to grow. But there is a distinct sense that the festival struggled to find eight films really worth screening. An Kubo sa Kawayanan is excellent. I Love You. Thank You. and Filemon Mamon have their charms, though the production needs work. The rest are pretty terrible, and would never have made it in any of other local festivals. It feels as though the festival was just showing these films so that there could be the appearance of a competition. Maybe next year will be better.
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World Premieres Film Festival (WPFF) runs until July 7, 2015 at the theaters of SM Mall North Edsa, SM Cinema Manila, SM Cinema Megamall, SM Mall of Asia, and SM Cinema Southmall. For screening schedules and more information, visit the WPFF website (http://wpff.ph/schedules.php) and like their Facebook page (/worldpremieresfilmfestival).
Movie posters from World Premieres Film Festival official website (wpff.ph)
