What? The Film Academy to pull out of Cebu?

We got a lot of positive text comments about our article on the International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT), mostly from our Cebuano friends who are very proud that this industry has now come to our shores. After all, Filipinos are fond of American films and what better than to have these films done in our own country for the simple reason that it is cheaper to do them here! As we’ve said, the reason why the IAFT opened in Cebu is the fact that as far as filmmaking is concerned, Cebuanos are virtually virgins. After all, it has been two generations since the demise of the Visayan movies.

Being born into a family of movie operators since the days of the silent movies, then to the "talkies" and finally to Technicolor and stereo sound, I had the privilege of seeing the rise and fall of many movie moguls, both local and international. I predict that soon, the IAFT would even drop "Film" from its name because pretty soon everyone would be making movies using digital videos rather than film.

If you didn’t know, films are expensive to purchase, process and store… and yes, they are taxed to death by the linear meter by the government. Now it is a matter of whether movie operators would spend a small fortune in shifting from the present film projector to a digital projector. When that happens, you can say that this would be the final revolution of the movie industry… from silent movies to digital movies.

Just when we wrote about the Film Academy, the local dailies in Cebu reported in their "tsismis sections" about a foreign investor threatening to pull out of Cebu because of corruption. Little did many people realize that those nasty rumors were about the Film Academy? We learned that being a pioneer industry in this field of foreign investment, Michael Gleissner, owner of the Film Academy, wanted to secure a special economic zone status from the government, which, if he gets it, would be a huge financial advantage. Unfortunately, a corrupt government official would only agree to what he wants if he gives millions of pesos in bribes.

Of course, we’re not mentioning here the name of this public official, but you can bet that you can easily get his name in any of the coffeehouses in Metro Cebu because lots of people are talking about this. Because he does not want to be a party to any corruption (he should be given a medal by the government), Mr. Gleissner has threatened to pull out of Mactan. If and when he shuts down operations, it would surely be one of the most embarrassing incidents that ever happened to foreign investments in Cebu and the country.

I gathered that Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is trying to appease the sore Mr. Gleissner and offered him the use of the South Reclamation Project (SRP) where he would personally see to it that the Film Academy would be given that special economic zone status. Let me tell you that I hate to report stories like this coming from Cebu, but that is the reality today in Mactan and many investors are sick and tired of the corruption happening there. Alas, we seem to be so powerless in stopping corrupt officials from making illicit money… we can only hope that someday, "karma" would strike them.

Talking about doing movies in the digital format, I heard that our good friend, Vic del Rosario, presidential adviser on entertainment and the big boss of Viva Films, has made a suggestion for the government to give a five-year tax holiday for digital films… meaning, they would be exempted from taxes like amusement taxes for five years. I should be elated with this proposal, but if you ask me, they should first ask why are the Americans so successful in the movie industry.

The answer is simple… the people in the US movie industry are only made to pay income taxes and that’s it! The US government does not saddle this industry with heavy taxes, unlike what our politicians do. Hence, for me, five years are too short! Let the industry pay taxes on income and you can see the movie industry boom once again… that’s if we can finally clamp down on pirated movies in CD or DVD format.

Lastly, let me share a story that happened to me in the early 70s. By accident, I met film director Francis Ford Coppola at the Moonwalk Burger on Mango Avenue when he took a breather from his filming of the famous movie Apocalypse Now. When I told him that we had theaters and that we showed American films, he told me: "This movie I’m making should have been done by a Filipino… after all, we are filming this movie here and everything we use is Filipino and they’re great to work with!"

Alas, our movie producers insist on using Tagalog as the medium for our movies, thus we put limitations on where we can market our movies throughout the entire global market. If only we shoot movies in English, Filipino-made films would have become hits years ago.

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Fresh on the heels of the very successful holding of the 19th Advertising Congress, the 2005 Southeast Asian Games’ Cebu leg kicks off this Sunday at the Cebu Sports Center. We will be hosting six of the 34 events of the SEA Games.

Expected to be in Cebu at this time are the 1,200 official delegates from the 10-nation federation, including their trainers, families and even some of their fans. The group includes a bevy of international media people from both print and broadcast from the member-countries, who will surely give Cebu and the country positive reports about the SEAG.

For Cebuanos, this is by far the biggest sporting event ever held on our shores. It would be a chance for many of us to experience how international sporting events are conducted and more importantly, how international athletes conduct themselves through sportsmanship and good etiquette.

On Nov. 28, the First Cebu IDSF Open Dance Sport Championship will be held at the Grand Ballroom of the Waterfront Hotel, Lahug. This is a one-day dance festival where other nations are competing… and Cebu is proudly a major contender in this very new sporting field.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.