Yearly avid viewers of the Metro Manila Film Festival are very pleased that Nathan Studios’ entry this year deals with a romance between two young people with Down syndrome: I’mPerfect. Almost surely, there won’t be a single violent scene in the film directed by Sigrid Andrea Bernardo.

Those longtime viewers are now just about willing to forgive the Atayde family, which produced last year’s MMFF entry, the violence-ridden Topakk, top-billed by the family’s actor-politician Arjo Atayde, 35, a Quezon City congressman.

A network journalist covering showbiz was practically traumatized by the film’s opening sequence: a decapitation.

With such a warning, we did not bother to see the film. But wanting to verify the existence of that gory scene, we turned to Google’s AI (artificial intelligence). Here is what the AI reported:

“Yes, Topakk, an entry in the 2024 MMFF, begins with a jungle-based mission where the protagonist, Miguel Vergara (Atayde), and his special forces unit are ambushed by a militant group. After being dazed by an explosion, Miguel regains consciousness to witness his captured comrades being decapitated by the enemy — an event that serves as the primary source of his PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) throughout the film.

“Graphic content: The movie is noted for extreme brutality, including scenes where heads are blown off, crushed, or sawed in half.

“Ratings: Due to its ‘graphic, non-gratuitous depiction of violence and gore,’ the film received an R-18 rating from the MTRCB for its theatrical run.

“Cast: The scene also features supporting actor Enchong Dee, whose character is among those brutally killed in the opening sequence.”

(MTRCB, of course, is the government watchdog agency — the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board — headed under the current Marcos administration by a daughter of Senate President Tito Sotto, a longtime Eat Bulaga host alongside Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon. Atayde’s actress wife, Maine Mendoza, has also been a host on the noontime show for several years.)

Some who watched Topakk last year still cannot fathom what prompted the selection committee to accept the film for Christmas-season screening. Worse, at the awards night, the film clinched the Special Jury Award and the FPJ Memorial Award for Excellence. Da King (Fernando Poe Jr.) must have roiled in his grave; in his 50-year filmmaking career, he never made a movie as violent as Topakk.

The film’s title is derived from the Tagalog slang topak (with only one “k,” take note), which generally means bouts of insanity.

Some who were appalled by Topakk feel it is the reason the actor-congressman later came under suspicion of having “earned” P60 million from the so-called floodgate controversy. To them, it was the Ataydes’ karma for producing a traumatically violent film. The movie’s box-office intake was never publicly disclosed. While Atayde is recognized as an excellent actor, he is not known for strong box-office appeal.

Arjo’s father, Art Atayde, was singled out by DPWH contractor Curlee Discaya as the one who allegedly received the money on behalf of his eldest son. Discaya made the accusation during a Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on September 8 this year.

Actress Sylvia Sanchez, Arjo’s mother and producer of both films, has confided in multiple media interviews that I’mPerfect has brought some sunshine back into the family’s life, which had been darkened by her husband’s and son’s involvement in the floodgate issue.

Sanchez agreed to produce I’mPerfect a few days after 8 September. The project was offered to her by Bernardo herself, who wrote the script 14 years ago, sometime after conducting an acting workshop for people with Down syndrome. “I was amazed by what they can do and was never bogged down by what they couldn’t,” Bernardo recalled at one media event for the film.

By 10 October this year, the MMFF 2025 selection committee announced that I’mPerfect was among the final four entries completing the festival’s eight official films. By then, production was already underway in scenic parts of Mindanao, including Nasipit, Agusan del Norte, and the rose farms of Claveria, Misamis Oriental. Sanchez hails from one of these places.

Casting the lead actors was easy for Bernardo, as she had chosen them even before finding a producer. They are Earl Jonathan Amaba, 25, and Anne Krystel Daphne Go, 29. Both have Down syndrome and no professional acting experience, though both are highly functional.

Colleague Jefferson Fernando has regaled Daily Tribune readers with stories of the leads’ endearing behavior during the shoot, especially toward Sanchez, the film’s executive producer, who reportedly brought her husband and other family members to the locations — without specifying whether this included Arjo and his even more famous wife, once paired with Alden Richards, the country’s unquestioned box-office giant.

Sanchez recently shared with entertainment journalists and vloggers that Go and Amaba fondly refer to her as “Mamang” (mother) and her husband as “Papang” (father).

Take note of how the film’s title is written: “Perfect” is deliberately attached to the apostrophed “I’m,” suggesting both “I’m perfect” and “imperfect” as equally applicable to the lead characters.

We hope the film wins awards at the MMFF 2025 Gabi ng Parangal on 27 December. Whatever categories it triumphs in, we will surely applaud every victory it earns.

Hail to MMFF 2025 entries that foster peace and love as innate human qualities, regardless of gender and mental faculties.