|
DIGITAL
EK EK: the .mov digital film festival
MTV ink
By
Bernie T. Sim
No slutty leading ladies, no impossible FPJ stunts, no stupid dance
numbers, and no two hour-long diva dramatics. These anti-formula digital
Pinoy flicks are able to cram in a whole lot of art and meaning in the time
that it takes for the other feature films to run their opening credits.
Vocalist Carol Bello of the world music ensemble Pinikpikan falters
midway through the Philippine National Anthem at the packed January 22
opening of the country’s first digital film fest. She giggles in
embarrassment then resumes singing, thankfully remembering all the words to
the “Pambansang Awit” this time. This was just one of several faux pas
committed that night: The Dawn’s Francis Reyes had to step in for
flu-ridden .Mov host Lourd de Veyra, there were countless lapses in program
cues, and obnoxious people were dishing out loud side comments throughout
the show (okay, so this isn’t production’s fault – but still).
Despite the many dilemmas that prompted the veteran NU 107 DJ to
quip, “Man, this is the hardest gig in the world,” the .Mov opening at
Greenbelt was a success. Artists, directors, and musicians were crowding the
buffet table and chugging down cans of Red Horse beer before proceeding
inside Greenbelt Cinema One for the opening remarks, the Silvershorts short
film awarding, and an audio-visual freestyle jam session.
For the next eight days .Mov showcased some of the best materials
independent cinema has to offer. For madcap orgranizer Khavn de la Cruz,
getting it all together required an abysmal trip into Philippine
bureaucracy, not to mention being a complete drain on his resources. Two
days before .Mov took off Khavn discovered that he just lost his government
funding due to a technical lapse. Attempts to get the MTRCB and the NCAA to
help proved futile. “The MTRCB chairman doesn’t even know what a short
film is!” Khavn exclaims. “He told me, ‘Short film? Five minutes? Eh,
end credits lang ‘yun eh.’ After that, I just remained quiet.”
Thankfully, Khavn and his associates managed to pull off their event even
without big money, and even with three bored MTRCB housewives waving the
mainstream plastic mallet around.
.Mov aims to promote the medium and the cause of digital filmmaking
in the country. As a production tool the digital media combines the best
format of video with the cheapest format of film. It’s definitely a medium
that allows a filmmaker to focus on their art, not on the box office hit
grosses the industry would want them to make. There were over 60 entries
spread across different .Mov categories, such full-length features, shorts,
music videos, animation, video installments and documentaries. Some are as
long as an hour while others would be over a minute. Then there’s the
geographical variety entries from Canada, USA, and India, which held their
own digital film fest last year. To accommodate the volume of entries, .Mov
also held free alternate screenings at the 50-or-so-seater Greenbelt preview
room, at the CCP, and at Joey Fernandez’ Brash Young Cinema bachelor pad.
.Mov screenings were originally supposed to be free, but Ayala decided to
“test the market,” and therefore charged a fee of P60 to watch one or
two full-length .Mov films at the Greenbelt Cinema One theater. “If we had
it our way, It’d be free,” says Khavn. The Ayala people were saying that
they didn’t really care about the money and all, but alas, those were just
merely words meant to pacify the plea of the ‘angry young artist.’”
One of the program’s highlights is the long overdue local short
film competition, The Silvershorts. I only managed to view five out of the
12 SS finalists, but wow, these were amazing works that deserve a slot on
primetime TV more than Attagirl and Whattamen do.
Said SS judge and film guru Kidlat Tahimik during the awarding
ceremonies, “ I never had the discipline you guys have. During the first
week of classes I was teaching at UP, the five minute shorts I received all
had a touch of Mother Lily sex and violence. Pero talagang magagaling ang
mga nakita kong films dito. The digital revolution has a potential here.”
Then he proceeded to grant the award – literally a kid-sized pair of
silver shorts suspended from a metal hanger.
The first place winner was Jolly Feliciano’s stop-motion feature, Kawala.
Stark and poignant, it looked like a painted comic (think Alex Ross’ Earth
X or Kent William’s The Crow) come to life. The editing was
superb, and it was obvious a lot of work went into post-production. Second
place went to Mo Zee’s unnerving Sulyap. Mo Zee, he with the rock
star hair and model bod, captured the estranged but ordinary moment when the
poor meets the well-off. Nothing fancy, but the short captures the feelings
of tension and guilt so well that I couldn’t help but squirm on my posh,
newly upholstered theater seat.
Then there’s the sensual and estrogen-rich This is My Body
by Edber Mamisao. It’s an intellectual and eroctic short that puts all our
local skin flicks to shame. A 3D black & white fun piece, Overkill,
is a macabre comedy about millennium disasters by Erin Pascual. And of
course, I got to see the much-gushed about A Date with Jao Mapa by
that bouncing body of comic relief, Quark Henares. Hilarious and koboy, even
with the Misery plot. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to view Arleen Cuevas
and Elizabeth Balitaan’s third placer, Taguan. Not to worry, since
Khavn’s Filmless Films production group will have the Silvershorts
finalists and some choice .Mov entries available on VHS format sometime this
year.
In the mornings during the festival, .Mov held a series of free
digital filmmaking workshops titled Digital Freedom. These are moderated by
the likes of Cannes and Sundance winner filmmaker Rob Nilsson, Tanging
Yaman and American Adobo cinematographer Lee Meily, and Artist
Group’s Bong Modesto. The seminars were capped by an open forum on the 30th
of January. You’d expect some free-spirited opinions flying around then,
especially with digital revolutionist Rob Nilsson, “Filmmaking for me is
to tell something I don’t know rather than something I do know. I want a
cinema for people. For me the everyday man and woman is interesting.”
Of the full-length features I only managed to watch JJ Pascual’s Lonely
Planet-esque A Pilgrim’s Journal. It was a lovely 40-minute
film, a perfect eye soother after a hectic day of commuting, and one you
didn’t want to leave even if your bladder’s begging you to go peepee.
There were only a handful of people in the G1 cinema (as opposed to maybe 20
in the free preview room), but then it was a weekday, and the organizers
admitted to slacking off in the publicity department early on. “We started
to peak during the weekend, although hindi siya binaha as in,” says Khavn.
“We got a very positive response. Pero saying lang yung iba nalaman lang
nila yung .Mov during the fest na, o kaya naman patapos na. Maybe if there
was enough awareness.” You becha.
The transition from celluloid to digital is not a revolution most
want it to be. Rather, and more realistically, it’s a slow evolution. Even
if you’ve convinced the big movie companies to switch technologies (and
they will because, let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to save a few
million bucks), there’s still the challenge of making them think digital.
There are big film outfits out there who still have minions of personal
assistants working on their small-scale digital projects. It is yet another
challenge the truly digital folks need to conquer, and conquer they will
because of their unadultered love for film. If they need to spell out to
these old dogs what a short film is, then so be it. Otherwise, you can still
curse them on national TV for being a “festival of idiots,” much like
Batang Westside’s director Lav Diaz did. But that’s another not-so-short
story.
|
