On Christmas Day, as a tradition that began in 1966, only locally produced movies are shown in theaters for two weeks in Metro Manila and it has done nationwide.
This year eight films entries were shown, eight movies that were carefully selected and scrutinized by the MMFF Committee.
But early as the first day, MMFF Committee have their hands full already with accusations of tickets swapping and movies being pulled out from the cinema.
According to a Rappler interview, “Nilalang” director Pedring Lopez and co-producer Wesley Villarica said that some films are already being pulled out of the cinemas even in their first day. One of them is their movie.
“In less than a day of screening we started getting pulled out of a few cinemas, and when today’s screening started, from 36 theaters in Manila and 7 provincial theatres we were down to less than 20 [in total],” said Villarica.
They already expect that bigger productions of movies such as “The Beauty and The Bestie” and “My Bebe Love” will screen at more cinemas. But they did not expect that they will be pulled out that early.
Villarica said that they should have been given “at least three days of screening” which did not happen.
They informed the MMFF Committee on this matter but no explanation was given to them, it turns out that the same thing is happening to “Honor Thy Father” and this was before the disqualification case filed against the movie the next day.
“Honor Thy Father” was disqualified on the basis that the MMFF Committee found out that it was already screened at the Cinema One Originals Film Festival last November. But its producers insist that letters were already sent on this matter.
The Metro Manila Film Festival 2015 is rife with intrigues and scandals and the recent Awarding Ceremony just added another one of this.
It’s just fortunate that moviegoers still support them but in my opinion a revamp needs to be done with the MMFF. There is so much hate and negativity in this year film festival.
