Pinoy movies we can be proud of shown at Montreal filmfest

The Tagalog films presented at the Montreal World Film Festival have always given me an emotional "high." I was deeply moved by Gil Portes’ Saranggola and Munting Tinig, enchanted by Maryo de los Reyes’ Magnifico and inspired by Mark Meily’s Crying Ladies. These films made me proud to be a Filipino.

Meanwhile, at the recently concluded 23rd Vancouver International Film Festival, the worst film I saw was "Woman of the Breakwater," directed by Mario O’Hara, produced by Entertainment Warehouse. It was one of the 40 films I saw from nearly 400 features screened from Sept. 23 to Oct. 8. The write-up intellectualized and glamorized the film and even had the pretense to associate it to the classic Dodes’ ’Kaden of master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

In reality, "Woman of the Breakwater" is yet another celluloid trash from the Philippines, disguised as an arty film festival offering about the lower depth of Filipino society and the down-and-outs. This theme has been done to death and like Lino Brocka has exploited the theme of poverty to death. Indeed, it is yet another way of making money from the country’s desperate poor.

The concept of "Woman of the Breakwater" is not original and the film in my opinion is devoid of style, artistry, illuminating insights and is totally one-dimensional about life in the Philippines. It is depraved, degrading, destructive, perverse and was poorly photographed, scripted and edited. It was crudely made, 3rd World country style. Some programmers from international film festivals have a habit of choosing kinky, exploitative works of pseudo-intellectual directors. Both parties enjoy showcasing the low moral and emotional forces that drive the lives of people.

I give this movie a special rotten tomato award because it is an embarrassing mess of a movie from the Philippines.

"A 10-country study showed that Canadian children of university-educated fathers are far more likely to pursue a university degree. And Canada still has one of the best records in the Western world in convincing people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to attend post-secondary education. Canada ranks third behind the Netherlands and Ireland. Within Canada, Manitoba and Ontario beat the Netherlands on the education equality index, making the two provinces the most equitable jurisdictions when it comes to access to university.

British Columbia is now outpacing the rest of Canada in innovation growth. The first five years saw a 64-percent increase in new patents per million population. Leading the race are those in bioprospecting the world’s oceans in search of new drug compounds from sponges and other invertebrates.

Meanwhile, in the business of entertainment, a new Vancouver made sci-fi movie starring Robin Williams (The Final Cut) will be the first feature movie to be presented in a groundbreaking innovation by using satellite distribution system.

This could be a view of futuristic exhibition and filmmaking. Instead of the bulky, heavy and expensive film reels. The Final Cut will be transmitted by satellite to 115 North America theaters or screens. However, the problem of digital piracy is the biggest problem that must be hurdled by the distributor.

Then, there is a new Vancouver Internet company which will soon sell independent film festival films for downloading. It will use a security system that prevents making illegal download. The new service will allow moviegoers to view rare, lost, forgotten and neglected films that had limited releases at festival circuits.

The DVD market has grown 104 percent in Canada this past year that studios and distributors worry less about box-office receipts in theaters. They are focusing more on the expansion of the home entertainment market.

The profitable DVD market is moving so fast that it is helping the movie and television business. A fine example is the Canadian-produced movie, The Snow Walker which earned only $201,000 in Canada theaters but has earned $500,000 on the home video market. This provided that the DVD market is now much larger than the box-office market. As the audio-visual technology improves, so will the consumer habits. Today, 40 percent of all Canadian homes have at least one DVD player. The future? It will be the high-definition DVD players and software.