Cinemalaya recently disqualified Emerson Reyes’ entry “MNL 143″ mainly because of casting disagreements. Reyes wanted to cast Joy Viado and Allan Paule in lead roles but the Cinemalaya committee disagreed saying that the choice of characters is “not suitable to the material”.
When I first heard this issue about Cinemalaya, I felt ashamed because if this is the case, then Cinemalaya is not different from the mainstream producers anymore and this frightens me. I believe Cinemalaya’s purpose is to help filmmakers put to film their visions, support their creative ideas through the grant given to the chosen entries, and to give them the freedom to create their own films but in this scenario, obviously Cinemalaya did not serve its purpose well.
This issue is something important to me since I am a huge fan of independent films and I have high respects for Cinemalaya and the people behind it, but in this case I felt frustrated. The reason behind the disqualification is something I can’t understand because I think it’s like questioning the talent of the actor and actress chosen. In an article by Marinel Cruz, it was stated there that Cinemalaya’s monitoring head Robbie Tan wanted to cast Victor Neri and Francine Prieto as the lead roles in the film MNL 143, which I think is very much “not suitable to the material”. In the first place, MNL 143 is a comedy film so I don’t think that Francine Prieto would act better than Joy Viado in a comedy role because Viado is a comedienne herself and Prieto is a sexy star. On the other hand, Victor Neri would also be the least actor I would cast on a comedy role because he is a serious action star to begin with. In another article I read, Robbie Tan specifically said “Pag may romance angle, at least, kahit papaano, importante yung chemistry nung dalawang artista.”. Okay let us go to the romance angle of the film, and yes the characters should have chemistry and connection as proofs that there is a love between them but I think the film wanted to cover an older version of romance and not the Sarah Geronimo-Gerald Anderson type of romance so I believe the chemistry part would be not so important anymore. Let us put it this way, in Anghelito, a program in ABS-CBN, Snooky Serna and Al Tantay played as the mother and father of the lead female role, and I didn’t see the chemistry there because actually viewers don’t care when it’s about older people’s love affair, all we care about really is how we would feel the love between them and this can be shown through their acting. I think Joy Viado and Allan Paule would do great, and chemistry is nothing if the acting is bad. I believe the directors should have the main authority to cast whoever they think is suitable to the role because it’s their film, and Cinemalaya’s role should be just to facilitate and monitor. I also felt disappointed because Cinemalaya is the only institution here which helps these filmmakers produce creative and great films with their own views and rule but it seemed like Cinemalaya’s goal now is just to sell-out.
I believed so much in Cinemalaya because I thought they mainly value the talent of filmmakers, and their creativity to make extra-ordinary films. I thought Cinemalaya, just like the independent filmmakers joining the contest, is not profit motivated. I thought their main goal is to produce good films first before anything else. I’d like to believe that somehow they would go back to their senses and be what we expected them to be because they’re the only hope of these filmmakers.
