New Ambitions in Philippine Film Business
May 9, 2012 at 09:47
MANILA — Teenagers drive down a dark, abandoned road. Their engine seizes. They must walk through the night as sinister shadows flicker around them. Before long, they are ensnared in the horrific events that have taken place in the area.
That is the premise of the Philippine movie “The Road,” which contains many familiar elements of a horror film: a dark plot, a jarring soundtrack and creepy backdrops.
But what is most notable about the film is what is missing. It lacks the melodrama, simplistic plot and poor production standards that have been hallmarks of many movies made in the Philippines in recent years.
The film, which has received positive reviews from horror movie critics in the United States, caught the eye of a midsize American film distributor. Starting Friday, Freestyle Releasing, based in Los Angeles, will show “The Road” in more than 50 theaters across North America. It will be released simultaneously on DVD and via the iTunes Store, Amazon.com and Netflix.
“As far as we know, this is the first Filipino film to be commercially distributed in the United States,” Annette Gozon-Abrogar, the president of GMA Films, a Philippine production company, said at a news conference in Manila announcing the deal. “This will be distributed like a Hollywood-produced movie.”
Other Asian horror movies have been exported to the U.S. with varying degrees of success, but they did not attract major audiences until they were remade for American viewers. Among them were “The Ring” (from “Ringu,” a Japanese film), “The Grudge” (from “Ju-on,” also Japanese) and “The Uninvited” (from “A Tale of Two Sisters,” a South Korean film).
If the debut of “The Road” hits the mark with American audiences, it could open the door to the lucrative North American market and revitalize a national film industry in the Philippines that by all accounts is in need of help.
From the 1960s through the 1990s, about 140 locally produced films a year were shown in the Philippines. It was during that time that Joseph Estrada shot to stardom and rode his on-screen charisma to the presidency.
But in the past decade, the number of locally made films has plunged by nearly half, to an average of 73 a year, according to a report by the country’s National Statistical Coordination Board.
In 2011, only about a third of the 229 films shown commercially in the Philippines were locally produced, the report noted. The vast majority were the Hollywood movies loved by many people in this former U.S. colony, where English is widely spoken. Last year, the top-grossing film in the Philippines was “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”
“Why is the local film industry dying?” asked the report.
As in many other developing Asian countries, rampant piracy has been a major factor undercutting development of the homegrown movie business. In the Philippines, a film that can be seen in the theater for a ticket that costs 120 pesos, or about $2.80, can often be bought at the same time from vendors of pirated DVDs for 40 pesos. The Film Academy of the Philippines estimates that the industry lost about 4 billion pesos last year to piracy.
Illustrating the pervasiveness of the problem, Ronald Llamas, the political adviser to President Benigno S. Aquino III, was photographed in January buying about 2,000 pesos’ worth of pirated DVDs at a local market in Manila. He later apologized.
Many also blame the decline of the local film business on a 30 percent tax on gross revenues that was instituted in the 1990s. Adding in a 12 percent value-added tax, Philippine movie producers were paying a tax rate of 42 percent for much of the past two decades.
“That killed the industry,” said Pepe Diokno, a producer and director whose film “Clash” won the Luigi De Laurentiis Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2009.
“The tax killed innovation and killed the chance that producers would take risks with narratives and unknown stars,” he said. “Producers went with formula, with melodrama and slapstick, because they had to be sure it would sell.”
In 2009, the revenue tax was lowered to a more manageable 10 percent. That was not the only major change in recent years. The advent of affordable digital equipment has allowed a boom in the production of independent films in the Philippines.
More than half of the local films shown in the past three years have been independent productions, according to the statistics board.
“There has been a revolution in technology,” said Yam Laranas, the director of “The Road.” “Ten years ago, few people could afford to make an independent film in the Philippines. A nontraditional story was not economically viable.”
“Things are changing,” he said, noting that he had shot “The Road” to U.S. theatrical release standards on Red Digital Cinema equipment that cost a small fraction of the price of traditional video cameras. “A lot of independent directors and studios are making innovative films because the costs are so much lower. It is less of a risk.”
According to Mr. Laranas, the proliferation of independent digital movie producers has had an effect on studios. He said that while “The Road” had been backed by a major mainstream studio in the Philippines, it shared many of the traits of independent films, including an unconventional story line.
“It used to be that producers and studios in the Philippines took the attitude, ‘They will eat what we feed them,”’ he said. “Now, more movies are coming out that are not your usual fare, and mass audiences are excited to see these films.”
In 2009, studios were put on notice by the release of the movie “Zombadings,” an independently produced horror comedy about the struggles of gay zombies.
Rather than simply mocking gay characters, a common feature of Philippine films, the movie delivered a message of tolerance wrapped in over-the-top comedy and gruesome visual effects.
It was a surprising success, bringing in more than 30 million pesos at the box office. That pales in comparison with the more than 400 million pesos that a Hollywood blockbuster can earn in the Philippines, but it was a substantial sum for a local, independent film.
Despite the success of such independent films, mainstream Philippine studios have been slow to emulate them, Mr. Diokno said. But Filipino filmgoers are becoming more sophisticated, and the studios neglect this development at their peril, he said.
“When we go around to schools and provincial areas and show independent films, audiences are very involved,” he said. “The reaction they give local independent movies is even more visceral than they give Hollywood movies.”
“I don’t understand why studio heads don’t realize that audiences can take nonlinear stories, flawed characters and subtleties,” Mr. Diokno said. “They haven’t picked up on it yet, but the audience is there for those kinds of movies.”
The Philippine audience was there for “The Road,” which unravels a grim mystery with a story told in reverse. Made for 20 million pesos, it grossed 47 million pesos in the first three weeks of its release.
However, establishing an American audience for the film will be no simple task, said David Chu, managing director of Asian Media Rights, a New York-based company that distributes Asian films in North America. He noted that only a few Asian films were typically widely released theatrically in the United States and that they were usually top action and martial arts films.
Successfully promoting a film that is being released in North American theaters is a significant investment and risk, he said.
“Some theaters require that you advertise in local newspapers,” he said. “There are billboards and bus stop advertisements. And it is not just a dollar investment. It requires personnel. It takes a lot of effort to promote a theatrical release.”
He noted that on the bright side, the film was being released simultaneously on multiple digital platforms, a form of distribution that his company prefers.
“Producers often equate success with how well their film did at the box office,” Mr. Chu said. “But there is a growing market outside of the theaters. You don’t need to be in the theaters to be a success.”
Backers of “The Road” are betting that one way or another — in theaters or via downloads — they can bridge the gap in tastes between Philippine and American audiences.
“Universally, people like to be scared,” Mr. Laranas said. “We wanted to do that with a clear narrative, not relying on jump scares, cats jumping out of nowhere. Anyone from Lima to New Jersey can appreciate this film.”
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By: Floyd Whaley
Source: The New York Times, May 7, 2012
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