MMFF 2025 and the continued evolution of the Filipino movie
It’s Christmas, and for Philippine cinephiles, it’s also the opening day of the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF)—a celebration of Philippine mainstream cinema, meant to bring in the family during this festive season. No foreign films will be shown during this period (though IMAX cinemas might still be showing “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” as the cinema dimensions might be too much for the MMFF movies that were not shown on IMAX cameras), and it’s a chance for the family and people on holiday to gather together and catch some Filipino movies.
Last year’s batch of films was a surprising array of movies from the touching “Green Bones,” the inspiring “Kingdom,” the surprisingly effective “My Future You,” the slick and bloody “Uninvited,” and the return of Vice Ganda to the festival with “And the Breadwinner Is,” directed by the reliable Jun Lana. These five were my favorites of those that I’ve seen, and it’s quite a refreshing selection compared to the MMFF of before: the ones that my students malign in their essays as being the reason they don’t like Filipino movies (but more on that later).
Those MMFF films of last year show us a continually evolving Philippine cinema landscape, where producers are veering away from the usual stories and presenting their audience with something new. And this year feels like a continuation of that.
What to expect in this year’s MMFF
As of writing, I’ve already seen two of the entries courtesy of advanced screenings—veteran master filmmaker Raymond Red’s “Manila’s Finest” and the return of the Shake, Rattle & Roll franchise to the festival with “Shake, Rattle & Roll: Evil Origins”—and already I feel this year’s crop of movies is coming up to a good start.
“Manila’s Finest” is a gripping period thriller with touches of noir aesthetics and illustrates the country’s slow descent to authoritarianism back in 1970 Manila at the onset of Martial Law. It’s a powerful piece that shows us how the dictatorship came quietly, creeping in, catching everyone unaware, despite feeling that something was changing.
“Shake, Rattle & Roll: Evil Origins,” on the other hand, is almost like an institution, but there’s a twist in this edition, linking the three stories instead of presenting three stories that are not connected. The second segment of the trilogy of short horror films plays out the best, reveling in its chosen horror genre and having a cast that’s fun to watch.
Vice Ganda and Jun Lana is back for another round and this time, joined by Nadine Lustre, in “Call Me Mother,” a team up that will surely bring the audience in, while “Bar Boys: After School” by Kip Oebanda is much anticipated, with the original film having gained a cult following, especially due to the material’s adaptation to stage, which seems like a massive hit.
But the one I’m most interested in is the return of Jeffrey Jeturian with “Unmarry” to the MMFF. The subject matter, the cast, and one of my favorite directors have made “Unmarry” something I can’t wait to see.
In defense of the mainstream movie
As I’ve been teaching for the past eight years (and counting), I’ve seen in the various essays in my freshman Philippine Film History class that most student filmmakers have no real connection to Filipino movies. Many of them grew up watching Hollywood films, while those who have a connection with Philippine cinema got it from watching classic Tagalog movies with their grandparents in Pinoy Box Office or the Cinema One Channel. For the most part, many of them have claimed that Filipino films are “bad,” that they have “the same rehashed storylines,” and that the same stars dominate the festival, over and over again.
These sorts of remarks tell me immediately that my students have not really watched Filipino films, if this is what they think of them. They are basing their opinions on films they haven’t seen (probably picking them up just from seeing the trailers)—not really looking at what else Philippine cinema has to offer.
But the films that are released during the MMFF are not just commercial movies meant to appeal to the broadest market with the intention of profit. If you take a look at the top 10 grossing Filipino films of all time, you’d see that Vice Ganda and romantic movies dominate that list. These movies speak to the broader population of the country.
Comments that talk about Filipino films being boring or about the same topics or even “bad cinematography or visual effects” reek of an elitism that compares Filipino movies with Hollywood, using a Western standard for a developing nation.
Decolonizing our cinematic taste
In 1970, Pete Lacaba wrote an essay called “Notes on Bakya” (Being an apologia of sorts for Filipino mass culture), where he goes into the defense of the bakya audience, whom he feels were looked down upon by an essay by Lino Brocka a few years prior. The essay claimed that the sad state of Philippine cinema (back in the late ’60s when he wrote it) was due to the uneducated masses who preferred foreign films and only wanted to watch Filipino films if they had popular love teams in them (sound familiar?).
The bakya literally meant the wooden slipper used by people in rural areas, usually by those who cannot afford more expensive footwear, usually worn by women when going to the market. Later, its definition had changed to everything that wasn’t hip or cool or trendy; it meant “cheap, gauche, naive, provincial, and terribly popular” as Lacaba states in his article.
Over the years, we’ve used other words to condescend: jologs, squatter, and many more. And one would say that the aversion some Filipinos have to the MMFF movies, and to Filipino movies as a whole, strikes of colonialism and elitism.
Constantly in a state of survival mode
Because the popular movies that they look down upon are the movies that the majority of the population enjoys. These are films that mirror and reflect their sensibilities, their culture, and their day-to-day lives. They rant against the quality of Filipino movies, but we live in a developing nation—our economy destroyed by corruption and bad governance, and so, many of our industries are just playing catch-up to the rest of the world.
Our films have to be a reflection of that. Of course, our visual effects won’t be the same as those of Hollywood—we can’t afford it. We don’t have their budgets, timetables, and resources to make movies to look like theirs.
Our movies also reflect who we are as a country. Is the pacing in our films slow? Have you seen our traffic? Have you ever waited in line at any bank or government office to get service? Our films mirror this. Are our films too verbose? Have you really listened to our language? Our words are long and complex. It’s not a language suited for brevity.
By looking down at our movies, we are, by extension, looking down at the state of our country and our countrymen. We are refusing to accept our culture’s penchant for melodrama and exaggeration. Our culture really dwells in the little things and how the systems that are in play have kept us in survival mode. The Philippines is constantly in survival mode—so is our industry, and so should our films be as well.
We should really stop using Hollywood as a comparison to our films. We don’t operate at that scale. Instead, we should compare our movies to other Filipino movies and benchmark our achievements against the best of what other Filipino films can attain.
Our stories are good. Our artists are excellent. We are doing incredible work with the little resources that we have, and that’s why the MMFF becomes a celebration of that. It’s why, in the past three years, I’ve become very excited to catch the MMFF. It’s a way for us to really see who we are and where we are headed.
