Poverty in Cinema/ Poverty of Cinema

Last week, the film industry composed of independent filmmakers confronted many questions that had to do with the independence of independent films. It was a wise move and put to rest the many severe criticisms that indies, as these films are known, had received. One of these brickbats had to do with how smug the new breed of filmmakers appeared in the face of artistry and approaches that have not had yet the proper support of the critical mass and the viable patronage of the ordinary audience.

I had the opportunity and the honor to be invited as one of the speakers in the forum of the Cinemalaya Film Congress 2010. The overall theme was "Liberating the Indie Film 2000-2009." I was part of Panel 1, which was called "Portraits of Poverty." There were other panels, some of which dealt with the preponderance of gay themes and the dominant presence of violence in many independent films.

Our panel was tasked with looking at how poverty is depicted - sensationalized, distorted, exoticized - in many independent films.

Outside the question of the degree to which these independent films have remained "truly independent," the forum asked also the following questions: "Do our filmmakers actually make films for festivals abroad rather than for their own people?" "Is this the reason why many of the festival films focus on abject poverty and its attendant 'evils' because this is the kind of spectacle that first world film festivals would sit up to watch?" "Why the obsession with violence and the violent?"

The questions are valid. The mainstream film industry of this country has long ago faded to oblivion. If the world knows about Filipino films, they know it through the many indies circulating around the more than 2,000 film festivals abroad and winning awards from them. The recognition is both a bane and boon. Viewed, the films showing the slums and squalor, violence and vigilantes, and other ritualized aspect of our cultures communicate to the world images of ourselves as created by our own artists. Awarded, the films validate these images and impressions.