Same old, same old

The list is out and it did not surprise at all.

The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) announced last June 29 the list of the first four entries that made this year’s annual festival.

Aurora, Fantastica: The Princess, The Prince and The Perya, Girl In The Orange Dress and Popo en Jack: The Pulisincredibles make up the first batch of movies that made the cut.

The remaining four entries will presumably be judged as finished films and announced some time in September.

The titles are dead giveaways, and the production houses and actors billing the movie are even more revelatory of the kind of festival everyone is going to see in December.

There’s Anne Curtis, Vice Ganda, Vic Sotto and Coco Martin — a roster that claims to have made several box-office movies. Three of them are actually the MMFF regulars or suki.

They have been in most festivals save for that one glorious year when almost all of the films were headlined by actors other than Vice, Coco or Vic.

It was in 2016 when the executive committee had the balls to stick with a roster of films that could endanger their box-office returns. It did, relatively speaking. That year’s gross was considered dismal, not even breaching the billion-peso mark in revenues compared with the more mainstream and commercial movies of Vice, et al.

Hold on. This is a competition, they say. But it is such a farce to call it one. I am not going to even talk about the quality of films because I have not seen a glimpse of the entries’ teasers nor read parts of the script. Yes, scripts can be the basis for an entry to be adjudged worthy to compete in a film festival.

This makes it farcical. This makes it a comedy so sinister in plot that it goes beyond contempt.

Where in the world can one find a filmfest competition where only a script submission becomes a qualifier for an official entry? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have yet to hear of a major local and international film fest that does this.

It goes against common sense to judge a film’s merits based on script because anything can happen between the writing process and the actual production of the movie. There can be a lot of rewrites and hashing of plot lines that could result in a different entry than previously submitted.

I’m just a viewer, after all. I am not part of the selection committee whose members are presumed to be there because they are deemed knowledgeable in the film industry.

Then again, since I am a viewer who will be forced to accept that only-Filipino films are going to be screened for two weeks in December, I believe I have a stake in what will be shown at my local movie theaters.

If past editions were to go by, right now I think I have to keep my eyes shut and pray that these so-called champions of Filipino films will give me stories that are artistically entertaining with just the right kind of laughs, twists and thrills.

And, before I forget, I hope not to see Vice, Coco or Vic carrying a tube of toothpaste or a cup of sardines in a scene so blatantly hard-sell. I’m quite happy with my pearly whites as it is, and I trust my dentist more than any other sweet tongue selling me false hopes.