A Filipino wins best director in Cannes!

After a long, long time, the very prestigious Cannes Film Festival came up with a surprise of surprises when it chose Filipino Film Director Brilliante Mendoza as the 2009 Cannes Film Festival’s “Best Director” for the movie “Kinatay” classed as an “Indie Film” or Independent Film made without the benefit of major US Studios, like United Artists (UA), MGM or Columbia Pictures. This is the first time I have heard of a Filipino Director winning this very coveted Film Award.

This rare victory strengthens our belief that Filipino Films do have international potential. I have talked with the likes of Mother Lily, Vic Del Rosario or our friends at Star Cinema that the Filipino Film industry has what it takes to make a film of international caliber and this film is more than enough proof. Alas, the local movie producers would rather make low budget films for local market, restricted only to Tagalog speaking audiences. In short, we have failed to cash in on the Filipino’s ability to speak English. But this prestigious honor bestowed upon Director Mendoza should invigorate the moribund Filipino Film industry.

But more importantly, government must act swiftly to help the movie industry back on its toes after years of neglect and video film piracy and burdensome taxes. While there’s a proposed bill in Congress that reduces the amusement taxes from the current 30% of gross down to 10% that has been approved by both houses in Congress, it is still waiting for the signature of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA).

The raging controversy of the Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili video sex scandal seems to have triggered our equally moribund police to clamp down on the sale of pornographic material that is sold freely by video pirates; however, they have failed miserably in stopping those video pirates despite the fact that there we have anti-film piracy laws. Alas, most of our police do not even know that such a law exists and most of them are the big patrons of video pirates, whose life expectancy depends upon our policemen waking up to the reality that because they did not enforce the law, video piracy exists.

Today Cebu plays host to the Academy of Film and Television at the BigFoot studios in Mactan and another one that is soon to open at the South Road Properties (SRP). But how can a Cebuano movie industry prosper when Cebuanos themselves have a huge appetite for pirated movies? BigFoot Entertainment CEO Jose Mercado told me that even the films that they made here in Cebu could be found in shops selling pirated videos.

Call this a warning shot that if the local government units in Metro Cebu do not crack down on those sellers of pirated video films (including many pornographic videos) then I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the film making facilities in BigFoot will shut down, pack up and leave Cebu. Mind you, while Cebu can easily beat the US when making movies at a lower cost, at least in the US, there is a chance that you will see the movie in the theaters before it ends up in a bootleg store. Here in the Philippines, films are already sold in the shops of video pirates before they are shown in our movies.

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North Korea allegedly exploded a nuclear bomb defying United Nations (US) resolutions, which has angered UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, but then aside from expressing outrage, what can the UN do? The stalemate in the Korean Peninsula, which began in 1952, is the most visible proof that the UN is totally inutile when it comes to rogue nations that do not care to follow UN resolutions. If only the UN resolved the problem between the North and South Korea or between the Palestinians and Israelis, we’d probably have a more peaceful world today. For sure we will not see the end of North Korea’s belligerent attitude.

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Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile resigned as chairman of the Committee of the Whole when he and Minority Leader Sen. Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel had an ugly verbal and very public spat, especially when in his defense of beleaguered colleague Sen. Manny Villar he couldn’t help but accuse Enrile of being dictatorial and a hypocrite for faking an ambush that led to Martial Law. This proves to you that despite the passage of 22 years, the old oppositionist hasn’t forgiven Sen. Enrile for his collaboration with the Marcos Dictatorship.

The highly-charged Senate floor had to do a recess in order to cool things down. But this only proves to us that our senators or at least the allies of Sen. Villar will quash any attempts by the Ethics Committee to get down to the truth whether or not Sen. Villar’s companies benefited from his budget “Insertions” in C-5. A Senate investigation would unmask Sen. Villar and it would mean the end of his Presidential ambitions.