ART is long and time is fleeting. Indeed, art is gracious even in bad times and sad times. This is an adage that is now being proven by filmmakers whose fierce independence in terms of creativity has surfaced to counter the depressing mode and mood of the present lockdown.
For a long time now, these so-called indie filmmakers have been viewed as free spirits—characters who would fight so that their works would have a public airing. Snob, bohemians, avant-garde (in the period when the term is so 1950s) and irrelevant—these are just some of the criticisms hurled at them. Strange that this society would rather pander to mainstream filmmakers and TV personalities whose sense of fun has always been at the expense of the marginal, the not-so-attractive population, and the disabled.
But here we are: the present virus pandemic has made these filmmaker viral and important.
What indeed can artists, filmmakers in this sense, do in this period when we are all quarantined?
The ballet dancer can dance perhaps but I have not heard of someone doing so. Theater people were caught up in their celebration of World Theater Day but all the world heard were loud congratulations posted online. Was there a theater presentation to subvert this dominant and all-pervasive feeling that a new virus has stopped the world?
The singers went pandemic. As early as the end of February, in Italy singers were singing from windows. By the time the deaths increased in Northern Italy, opera singers were doing their thing from porches and balconies, their “Nessun Dorma” pleading that no one shall sleep because people are dying each day and night.
Locked separate from each other, it appears there is one form that can unite us easily and that is cinema.
In our country, it was accomplished documentarian Baby Ruth Villarama (Sunday Beauty Queen), who informed me of the creation of a “Lockdown Cinema Club.”
The initiative is a result of a community chat group involving producers (Alemberg Ang, Camille Aragon and Patricia Sumagui), production designers, art department individuals, cinematographers (Lupon ng Pilipinong Sinematograpo), directors (Directors’ Guild of the Philippines Inc., DGPI) and writers composed of those who have undergone writing workshop from Ricky Lee. The ad hoc organization is working together to curate for free screening short films from the Philippines and other places in Asia.
If Bette Davis had the Hollywood Canteen where she and other movie actresses of the 1940s worked as waitresses to serve military men on leave from the battlefields of Word War II, or Bob Hope entertaining the soldiers in Vietnam, then we have this intrepid band of artists with a cinema club that confronts the lockdown instead of denying such existence.
The club works in a very simple way: it screens films that are aimed at entertaining people who have practically nothing to do. Some of them are working from home; some of them have stopped working altogether. Then it asks for donations with clear instructions on how kind and generous souls can share their financial support to the advocacy.
For the first week, short films were made available. The list includes Cambodian, Indonesian, Thai, Malaysian, Singapore and Philippine short films.
John Torres, Giancarlo Abrahan, Pam Miras, Arden Rod Condez, Lav Diaz, Sheron Dayoc, Erik Matti, Jerrold Tarog, Jaja Arumpac and Xeph Suarez are just some of the names whose short films are available for viewing.
Initially, the endeavor targets some 1,000 film workers who are out of work because of the present quarantining of communities. From Google Sheets and other technological assistance, the group was able to locate and map names of the film workers. As long as it is vetted, Villarama says, they add that name to the list.
In a related effort, Ricky Lee opens an online scriptwriting workshop to encourage people to join the bayanihan efforts. Directors who are affiliated with the DGPI contribute resources.
The group believes in transparency and, thus, publishes details of its fund and the disbursements. As of March 30, 2020, the collective had already raised P2,116,350.67. Not bad for a group doing what its members love doing naturally.
As of the said date also, the total amount disbursed for assistance amounted to P718,000. The group has still a little bit more than a million—specifically P1,398,350.67.
For its beneficiaries, the breakdown is as follows: Camera Department, 557; Art Department, 356; Assistant Director and Production Management, 147; and Sound and Post-Production Department, 43. The listing, it is assumed, continues.
Of this number of beneficiaries, 359 individuals have been given subsidies of P2,000 each.
In an updated report from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) comes a list of film companies and film workers cited for dedicating “their craft in the spirit of solidarity in this trying time.”
Excluding Lockdown Cinema Club (LCC) DGPI and Ricky Lee, the list includes TBA Studios (producer of Heneral Luna and Women of the Weeping River), Cinema One Originals, Regal Entertainment Inc., Kip Oebanda (who screens Bar Boys), Lester Valle with his documentary Walang Rape sa Bontok, Joselito Altarejos with his Dulot Ko Saimo Wanda, Gio Potes and his film Mark & Lenny, Law Fajardo showing his Imbisibol, and Khavn de la Cruz offering his Edsa XXX: Ganito Kami Noon, Ganito Pa Rin Kami Ngayon. Please note that this list is part of a developing post.
Not mentioned yet by the NCCA in this list is the work of maverick producer, filmmaker and cultural worker, Elvert Bañares, who streams his own experimental films, some of them shown and acclaimed abroad, with the same purpose of seeking donation to help our “frontliners, our heroes.” In Bañares’s films, there is always this embedded sense of the dystopia making his works appropriate for these troubled and disturbing days.
As of this writing, Jay Altarejos has set up @2076Kolektib, which screens his films Pink Halo-Halo, Tale of the Lost Boys and Kasal. Altarejos uses the platform to call on the freeing of political detainees, a medical and not military intervention, and free mass testing. Again, this is art serving the masses.
Villarama has chosen for this week one of her most sociologically adept documentaries—Jazz in Love, a tribute to gay marriage, or an impending gay marriage between a young Filipino and a German. The community where the relationship takes place accepts the German for any foreign visitor is a promise of comfort and wealth.