THIS month and the next, the Philippine film industry becomes the darling of at least two film festivals in Asia: the 27th Asia Fukuoka International Film Festival (FIFF) in Japan and the 23rd Busan International Film Festival in South Korea.
In Fukuoka, the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) coordinated with the Focus on Asia Fukuoka International Film Festival in celebrating Philippine Cinema for its 100 years by highlighting a Special Feature on Filipino Films for its 2018 edition, which ran from September 14 to 23. In this regard, FDCP organized a delegation of Filipino filmmakers, artists and academicians.
The words of Liza Diño, FDCP CEO and chairman, summed up it all: “The city of Fukuoka, which organizes the festival, has given importance to Philippine cinema since way back. Just a year after its inception in 1991, Lino Brocka’s Insiang already found its way as the Philippines’s first official entry to the festival. Since then, many other important Filipino films and filmmakers have been invited in Fukuoka to participate in discussion sessions, as well as symposia, which brought about a relationship of exchange with the audience of Fukuoka. This is why we are very proud that this year, we finally get to partner with them so we celebrate the centenary of Philippine Cinema together and look forward to the future of our films.”
Indeed, Fukuoka has honored the Philippines not belatedly but as early as the 1990s, when the indie film phenomenon was not in sight yet. In 1995 the archive of the Fukuoka International Film Festival stated: “The festival in 1996 featured a collection of films from the Philippines, one of a few countries in the world where the domestic film industry can stand up to American films in terms of box office success. Centered on powerful, robust and entertaining films, the collection brought great excitement to the audience which included Filipinos residing in Fukuoka.” The archived notes continued: “In particular, Marilou Diaz-Abaya, a participant to our 1995 as well as 1996 festival, has come to place her most recent works for exhibition with us. Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s positive attitude toward exchanging opportunities with local civic groups has made her one of Fukuoka’s best-known filmmakers from Asia.”
The collection of films from the Philippines included: Diaz-Abaya’s May Nagmamahal sa Iyo (listed as Mother and Child); Joel Lamangan’s The Flor Contemplacion Story and Pangako ng Kahapon (Yesterday’s Promise); Chito Rono’s Dahas (Rage); Jose Javier Reyes’s May Minamahal (Loving Someone); and Laurice Guillen’s Because I Love You.
An interesting part of this collection is Gerry de Leon’s Noli Me Tangere.
The archive document notes that June 1996 marked the inauguration of the Fukuoka City Public Library Film Archive, “which researches, collects, acquires, preserves and exhibits visual material centered around masterpieces in Asian and Japanese cinema.” The same document stresses how the “Film Archive has enhanced the significance of Fukuoka as a center of information on Asian films. Since 1996, a system has been established where titles exhibited at our festival are acquired into the collection of the Film Archive.”
The collection of films from the Philippines are all found in this film archive, including the very first entry from Marilou Diaz-Abaya, Ipaglaban Mo (translated as Redeem Her Honor).
There is a bit of a trivia in the archived annual program of the FIFF: In 1997 there was a typhoon and some of the planned events were canceled. The attendance dropped but the number of participants was still big—64. The archive notes this was so because of the large number of participants from the Philippines, many of whom paid their own travel.
Under the Excellent Programs of Asia were Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Milagros and Joel Lamangan’s Bakit May Kahapon Pa (listed as Why is There A Yesterday).
As we all know, Marilou Diaz-Abaya became the 12th Fukuoka Asian Arts and Culture Prize laureate in 2001. I was in Japan then on a fellowship when the Filipina filmmaker became the toast of Japanese critics both in Fukuoka and in Tokyo.
Tadao Sato, an eminent critic who was proud of Diaz-Abaya, shared with us how the filmmaker regaled and impressed the many audiences she had to address in Fukuoka after the award. It was said that Diaz-Abaya never repeated any speech: for each different forum, she had a different speech, the content dealing with themes and concerns not addressed in the previous gathering.
I was walking along Kanda, Tokyo, that same year, 2001, when I saw that the banners of her film, Jose Rizal, were all over the area. Kanda is where the famous art-cinema Iwanami Hall can be found. It was where Jose Rizal was commercially released in Japan that year. Kidlat Tahimik would be awarded the same recognition in 2012.
Rey Ileto, historian and author of Pasyon and Revolution, and Ambeth Ocampo, public historian and journalist, would both win the Academic Prize of the Fukuoka Asian Arts and Culture Prize in 2003 and 2016, respectively.
And now, it is 2018. The personalities have not only changed, but filmmaking and filmmakers have also shifted into different modes and are following alternative and new directions. Thus, in Fukuoka, there was a section called The Special Feature, titled “Drawn and Attracted to the Sacred Chaos.” Under this were the outstanding Filipino films directed by young filmmakers to represent the future of the country’s cinema, including Nervous Translation directed by Shireen Seno, Bagahe by Zig Dulay, Smaller and Smaller Circles by Raya Martin and Women of the Weeping River by Sheron Dayoc. The festival also featured an omnibus of regional short films with Hilom by PR Patindol, Gikan sa Ngitngit Nga Kinaidlaman by Kiri Dalena, Babylon by Keith Deligero, Si Astri Maka si Tambulah by Xeph Suarez and Jodilerks Dela Cruz, Employee of the Month by Carlo Francisco Manatad.
For the Fukuoka’s special program, Restoration Asia VI, a Filipino classic masterpiece from the 1970s, Nunal sa Tubig (Speck in the Water) by Ishmael Bernal was screened in the festival as a digital restoration of the 35mm film print archived under the collection of the Fukuoka City Public Library Film Archive. The film had both Japanese and English subtitles.
The screening was followed by a discussion on the restoration, chaired by Hisashi Okajima, director of Nationa Film Archive of Japan. The panel included Leo Katigbak, head of Film Restoration and Archives of ABS-CBN; Adrian Wood, founder and coordinator, Restoration Asia, Fukuoka; and FDCP Chairman and CEO Liza Diño.
The Busan International Film Festival is slated to run from October 4 to 9. If a visa is granted, I’m going to be there to participate in a forum. For months now, a committee organized by the FDCP, which involves Doy del Mundo, Nick de Ocampo, Teddy Co and myself, met several times to discuss how Philippine cinema could be articulated in that festival in South Korea. We also were assigned to write essays that would come out in the book to be issued during the festival.
I look forward to writing about Busan, the film festival and the place, in my column. If fate would allow, I also plan to travel by ferry from Busan, or Pusan, to Hiroshima in Japan—for old time’s sake.