EARLY HISTORY OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA
The film industry in the Philippines began in the late 19th century through foreign initiatives. In 1897, two Swiss entrepreneurs introduced film screenings in Manila, showing short documentary clips of events and disasters in Europe. Earlier, in 1888, a Spanish army officer had filmed and exhibited scenes of the city. With the arrival of American colonial rule in 1903, silent films became more widespread, though these early screenings remained novelties and struggled to sustain local audience interest, partly because they depicted foreign subjects. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory; John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
By 1909, the country had established three film studios, and within a few years, both a censorship board and an anti-censorship group emerged. In 1912, American filmmakers produced two films about José Rizal—La Vida de José Rizal and El Fusilamiento de Dr. José Rizal. Their popularity demonstrated the demand for stories rooted in Filipino history and identity, encouraging the development of locally relevant filmmaking.
The first major Filipino filmmaker was José Nepomuceno, often called the “Father of Philippine Movies.” After leaving his successful photography business, he founded Malayan Movies and began producing films. In 1919, he released Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden), widely regarded as the first Filipino-produced feature film. Over his long career, Nepomuceno created more than 300 films and established several studios.
During the early decades, Philippine filmmakers drew heavily from Hollywood, adopting its genres and production styles despite limited financial resources. While this influence helped shape the industry, it also highlighted the challenges of competing with better-funded foreign productions. At the same time, regulatory forces sometimes restricted creative expression even as the industry expanded.
Filipino Film in the 1930s
The early years of Philippine film, in the 1930s, treated cinema as a new medium. Stories were drawn from theater and popular literature, considered “safe” because they already had an audience. Nationalistic films were also produced, though restrictions discouraged material seen as subversive. Early producers included wealthy Spaniards, American businessmen, and Filipino landlords and politicians. Pre-war films generally avoided themes that questioned the establishment and instead emphasized harmony between social classes. [Source: [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory]
Beginning with Dalagang Bukid, early films relied on traditional theater for character types, plot structures, and acting styles. Many productions were based on popular dramas or sarswelas, which provided ready-made material and an existing audience. From the komedya and sarswela developed the Filipino action film. In the komedya, moral divisions were defined by religion, with Christians as heroes and Moors as villains; later films replaced this with divisions based on law or class. The sinakulo (passion play) shaped Filipino melodrama, with the Virgin Mary represented as the suffering, forgiving mother and Jesus as the redeemer of those in crisis. Philippine literature also supplied themes and character types, particularly the works of Francisco Baltazar and Jose Rizal, which continued to influence films.
Some filmmakers addressed sociopolitical issues despite prevailing constraints. Julian Manansala’s Patria Amore (Beloved Country) faced near suppression for its anti-Spanish content, earning him the title “Father of the Nationalistic Film.” By the period from 1919 to the 1930s, local films had developed their own audience and recognition for Filipino actors. Despite competition from Hollywood, the industry expanded, and by the late 1930s, moviegoing had become established among Filipinos.
By the end of the decade, the industry had grown significantly. Studios such as Sampaguita Pictures, along with LVN, Lebran, and Premiere Productions, operated under a studio system similar to Hollywood’s. By 1939, at least eleven companies were producing about fifty films each year. This growth was interrupted by World War II, when production declined during the Japanese occupation.
Filipino Films During World War II
The Japanese Occupation introduced a new player to the film industry – the Japanese; and a new role for film – propaganda: “The Pacific War brought havoc to the industry in 1941. The Japanese invasion put a halt to film activity when the invaders commandeered precious film equipment for their own propaganda needs. The Japanese brought their own films to show to Filipino audiences.” The films the Japanese brought failed to appeal to audiences the same way the Hollywood-made movies or the locally-made films did. Later on, Japanese propaganda offices hired several local filmmakers to make propaganda pictures for them. One of these filmmakers was Gerardo de Leon. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
The war years during the first half of the Forties virtually halted filmmaking activities save for propaganda work that extolled Filipino-Japanese friendship, such as The Dawn of Freedom made by director Abe Yutaka and associate director Gerardo de Leon…Less propagandistic was Tatlong Maria (Three Marias), directed in 1944, by Gerardo de Leon and written for the screen by Tsutomu Sawamura from Jose Esperanza Cruz’s novel…Despite the destruction and hardships of the war, the people…found time for entertainment; and when movies were not being made or imported…they turned to live theater…which provided alternative jobs for displaced movie folk. The war years may have been the darkest in film history…”
This period turned out to be quite beneficial to the theater industry. Live theater began to flourish again as movie stars, directors and technicians returned to the stage. Many found it as a way to keep them from being forgotten and at the same time a way to earn a living. In 1945…the film industry was already staggering to its feet. The entire nation had gone through hell and there were many stories to tell about heroic deeds and dastardly crimes during the 3 years of Japanese occupation. A Philippine version of the war movie had emerged as a genre in which were recreated narratives of horror and heroism with soldiers and guerillas as protagonists…audiences still hungry for new movies and still fired up by the patriotism and hatred for foreign enemies did not seem to tire of recalling their experiences of war.
The 1940s and the war brought to Philippine film the consciousness of reality which was not present in the preceding films. Filmmakers dared to venture into the genre of the war movie. This was also a ready market especially after the war. Movies such as Garrison 13 (1946), Dugo ng Bayan (The Country’s Blood, 1946), Walang Kamatayan (Deathless, 1946), and Guerilyera (1946) , told the people the stories they wanted to hear: the heroes and the villains of the war. The war, however, had left other traces that were less obvious than war movies that were distinctly Filipino. As Patronilo BN. Daroy said in his essay Main Currents in Filipino Cinema: “World War II left its scars on the Filipino’s imagination and heightened his sense of reality…”
Golden Age of Philippine Films in the 1950s
As with newspapers and magazines, film companies proliferated after the liberation in 1945, increasing in number to at least forty by 1952. The Big Four, which had formed by 1946, soon dominated the industry, employing ten thousand people and controlling over 90 per cent of the production, distribution and exhibition of Filipino films. The “Big Four” operated under the studio system. Each studio (Sampaguita, LVN, Premiere and Lebran) had its own set of stars, technicians and directors, all lined up for a sequence of movie after movie every year therefore maintaining a monopoly of the industry. The system assured moviegoers a variety of fare for a whole year and allowed stars and directors to improve their skills. However, all that changed. A five-year strike (1950–55) hit Premiere, and artists and technicians defected to start their own companies, causing the Big Four to lose their bargaining power. By 1958, there were one hundred film production companies, and within a few years, only Sampaguita of the Big Four remained. [Source: John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
The 1950s were considered a time of “rebuilding and growth”. But remnants from the preceding decade of the 40s remained in the form of war-induced reality. This is seen is Lamberto Avellana’s Anak Dalita (The Ruins, 1956), the stark tragedy of post-WWII survival set in Intramuros. The decade saw frenetic activity in the film industry which yielded what might be regarded as the first harvest of distinguished films by Filipinos. Two studios before the war, namely Sampaguita Pictures and LVN, reestablished themselves. Bouncing back quickly, they churned out movie after movie to make up for the drought of films caused by the war. Another studio, Premiere Productions, was earning a reputation for “the vigor and the freshness” of some of its films. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
Critics now clarify that the 50s may be considered one “Golden Age” for the Filipino film not because film content had improved but because cinematic techniques achieved an artistic breakthrough in that decade. The 1950s was a time when films matured and became more “artistic”. The studio system, though producing film after film and venturing into every known genre, made the film industry into a monopoly that prevented the development of independent cinema.
This new consciousness was further developed by local and international awards that were established in that decade. Awards were first instituted that decade. First, the Manila Times Publishing Co. set up the Maria Clara Awards. In 1952, the FAMAS (Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences) Awards were handed out. More so, Filipino films started garnering awards in international film festivals. One such honor was bestowed on Manuel Conde’s immortal movie Genghis Khan (1952) when it was accepted for screening at the Venice Film Festival. Other honors include awards for movies like Gerardo de Leon’s Ifugao (1954) and Lamberto Avellana’s Anak Dalita. This established the Philippines as a major filmmaking center in Asia. These awards also had the effect of finally garnering for Filipino films their share of attention from fellow Filipinos.
Philippine Film in the 1960s
John A. Lent wrote in the Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film: In the 1960s, the Philippines industry was completely transformed. The Big Four had ceased production; independents dominated, most of them in films solely for profits; and citizens became indignant about a crime wave that had possible links with movie viewing. Also, the content of movies worsened, providing only an orgy of escapism, and the star system was pushed to the limit with actors dominating over directors. [Source:John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
The studio system had made filming a planned affair where Big Four directors lined up a variety of genres for wider appeal. Independents short on capital had to recover their investments quickly, which they did by copying the last box-office hit. As a result, the 1960s gave rise to many copies of foreign films with Filipino cowboys, samurai, and kung fu masters, James Bonds (Jaime Bandong), and bold sexual movies, bombas, featuring young starlets who bared all on screen. Veteran director Lamberto V. Avellana labeled the audiences for such slam-bang, blood-and-guts, sex-filled quickies as bakya, a pejorative term for a low-class audience, which refers to the moviegoers who wear bakya, native wooden clogs.
The 1960s saw the emergence of the youth revolt best represented by the Beatles and the rock and roll revolution. They embodied the wanting to rebel against adult institutions and establishments. Certain new film genres were conceived just to cater to this “revolt”. Fan movies such as those of the “Tita and Pancho” and “Nida and Nestor” romantic pairings of the 50s were the forerunners of a new kind of revolution – the “teen love team” revolution. “Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos, along with Tirso Cruz III and Eddie Mortiz as their respective screen sweethearts, were callow performers during the heyday of fan movies. Young audiences made up of vociferous partisans for ‘Guy and Pip’ or ‘Vi and Bot’ were in search of role models who could take the place of elders the youth revolt had taught them to distrust”. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
Decline of Philippine Film in the 1960s
If the 1950s were an ubiquitous period for film, the decade that followed was a time of decline. There was “rampant commercialism and artistic decline” as portrayed on the following: In the 1960s, the foreign films that were raking in a lot of income were action pictures sensationalizing violence and soft core sex films hitherto banned from Philippine theater screens, Italian “spaghetti” Westerns, American James Bond-type thrillers, Chinese/Japanese martial arts films and European sex melodramas. To…get an audience to watch their films, (the independent) producers had to take their cue from these imports. The result is a plethora of films…giving rise to such curiosities as Filipino samurai and kung fu masters, Filipino James Bonds and…the bomba queen.
In the 1960s, the notorious genre of bomba was introduced and from that day forward has been present in the Philippine film scene ever since. The studio systems came under siege from the growing labor movement which resulted in labor-management conflicts. The first studio to close was Lebran followed by Premiere Productions. Next came Sampaguita and LVN. The “Big Four” studios were replaced by new and independent producers who soon made up the rest of the film industry. Child star films were popular. Roberta (1951) of Sampaguita Pictures was the phenomenal example of the drawing power of movies featuring [these] child stars. In the 60s this seemed to imply rejection of “adult corruption” as exposed by childhood innocence.
The film genres of the time were direct reflections of the “disaffection with the status quo” at the time. Action movies with Pinoy cowboys and secret agents as the movers of the plots depicted a “society ravaged by criminality and corruption” . Movies being make-believe worlds at times connect that make-believe with the social realities.
These movies suggest a search for heroes capable of delivering us from hated bureaucrats, warlords and villains of our society. The action films of the 1960s brought into the industry “ a new savage rhythm that made earlier action films seem polite and stage managed.” The pacing of the new action films were fast as the narrative had been pared down to the very minimum of dialogues. And in keeping up with the Hollywood tradition, the action sequences were even more realistic.
Filipino Bomba Film Genre
Another film genre that is perhaps also a embodiment of the revolt of the time is the bomba genre. Probably the most notorious of all, this genre appeared at the close of the decade. Interestingly, it came at a time when social movement became acknowledged beyond the walls of campuses and of Manila. An especially big year for bombas was 1971, when most of the 251 Filipino movies were sex-oriented.[Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
In rallies, demonstrations and other forms of mass action, the national democratic movement presented its analysis of the problems of Philippine society and posited that only a social revolution could bring genuine change. The bomba film was a direct challenge to the conventions and the norms of conduct of status quo, a rejection of authority of institutions in regulating the “life urge” seen as natural and its free expression “honest” and “therapeutic”
Looking beyond the obvious reasons as to the emergence of the bomba film, both as being an exploitative product of a profit-driven industry and as being a “stimulant”, it can be analyzed as actually being a “subversive genre”, playing up to the establishment while rebelling and undermining support for the institutions.
Even in the period of decline, genius has a way of showing itself. Several Philippine films that stood out in this particular era were Gerardo de Leon’s Noli Me Tangere (Touch me Not, 1961) and El Filibusterismo (Subversion, 1962). Two other films by Gerardo de Leon made during this period is worth mentioning – Huwag mo Akong Limutin (Never Forget Me , 1960) and Kadenang Putik (Chain of Mud, 1960), both tales of marital infidelity but told with insight and cinematic import.
Philippine Films during the Marcos Years
Ferdinand Marcos was in power in the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. The 1970s and 1980s were turbulent years, bringing positive and negative changes. From the decline in the 60s, films in this period now dealt with more serious topics following the chaos of the Marcos regime. Also, action and sex films developed further introducing more explicit pictures. These years also brought the arrival of alternative cinema in the Philippines. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
John A. Lent wrote in the Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film: The Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship of 1965–1986 was both bad and good for film because it played roles that restricted, regulated, and facilitated the industry. For example, between 1975 and 1980, the Philippine government cracked down on films encouraging subversion, violence, pornography, and crime, revamped the censorship board, and instructed producers to redefine industry guidelines to support so-called Philippine values; but it also supported the showing of Filipino movies, built the controversial University of the Philippines Film Center and established the Manila International Film Festival. [Source: John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
Government involvement escalated in the last years of the Marcos regime with the creation of the Motion Picture Development Board, which was to oversee four major bodies—the Film Fund, Film Academy of the Philippines, Film Archives, and the Board of Standards. Next came the strengthening of censors' powers in 1981, and the establishment of the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines a year later, headed by one of the Marcos daughters. Film personnel, fearing the nationalization of the industry, demonstrated in the streets against these measures under the aegis of an artists' coalition, Free the Artist Movement, started by director Lino Brocka (1939–1991).
Of the major genres, action and melodrama—of a soap opera type—were (and still are) the most popular; between 1978 and 1982, for example, they accounted for 47 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of the total. Tracing its origins to early theatrical forms, the action film includes a strict sense of morality, an idealized code of honor, and a set of traditional values. Most melodramas come from komiks (comic books); in fact, for years, 30 to 40 percent of big studios' scripts came from this source. Komiks make successful movies because of their presold audiences. They are adapted to film by making komiks characters look like movie stars who then play the screen role, and by selling an idea to a komiks publisher who brings it out in printed form. During the last few weeks of the komiks serialization, the movie version appears with a climax that may or may not be the same as the magazine.
Philippine Films during Martial Law in the 1970s and 80s
In the 60s, the youth clamored for change in the status quo. Being in power, Ferdinand Marcos answered the youth by placing the nation under martial rule. In 1972, he sought to contain growing unrest which the youth revolt of the 1960s fueled. Claiming that all he wanted was to “save the Republic”, Marcos retooled the liberal-democratic political system into an authoritarian government which concentrated power in a dictators hand. To win the population over, mass media was enlisted in the service of the New Society. Film was a key component of a society wracked with contradictions within the ruling class and between the sociopolitical elite and the masses. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
In terms of comparisons, the Old Society (or the years before Martial Law) became the leading symbol for all things bad and repugnant. The New Society was supposed to represent everything good – a new sense of discipline, uprightness and love of country Accordingly, the ideology of the New Society was incorporated into local films. Marcos and his technocrats sought to regulate filmmaking. The first step was to control the content of movies by insisting on some form of censorship. One of the first rules promulgated by the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures (BCMP) stipulated submission of a finished script prior to the start of filming. When the annual film festival was revived, the censors blatantly insisted that the “ideology” of the New Society be incorporated into the content of the entries.
The government tried to control the film industry while keeping it in “good humor” – necessary so that the government could continue using film as propagandistic vehicles. So despite the censors, the exploitation of sex and violence onscreen continued to assert itself. Under martial law, action films depicting shoot outs and sadistic fistfights ( which were as violent as ever) usually append to the ending an epilogue claiming that the social realities depicted had been wiped out with the establishment of the New Society. The notorious genre of sex or bomba films that appeared in the preceding decade were now tagged as “bold” films, simply meaning that a lot more care was given to the costumes.
Martial Law clamped down on bomba films as well as political movies critical of the Marcos administration. But the audience’s taste for sex and nudity had already been whetted. Producers cashed in on the new type of bomba, which showed female stars swimming in their underwear, taking a bath in their camison (chemise), or being chased and raped in a river, sea, or under a waterfall. Such movies were called the wet look. One such movie was the talked-about Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa (The Most Beautiful Animal on the Face of the Earth, 1974) starring former Miss Universe Gloria Diaz.
However, the less-than-encouraging environment of the 70s gave way to “the ascendancy of young directors who entered the industry in the late years of the previous decade…” Directors such as Lino Brocka, best remembered for his Maynila, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila, In the Claws of Neon Lights, 1975), Ishmael Bernal, director of the Nora Aunor film Himala (Miracle, 1982) and Celso Ad. Castillo, whose daring works portrayed revolt, labor unionism, social ostracism and class division, produced works that left no doubt about their talent in weaving a tale behind the camera.
Another welcomed result that came from martial rule was the requirement of a script prior to filming. This was an innovation to a film industry that made a tradition out of improvising a screenplay. Although compliance with the requirement necessarily meant curtailment of the right of free expression, the BCMP, in effect caused the film industry to pay attention to the content of a projected film production in so far as such is printed in a finished screenplay. In doing so, talents in literature found their way into filmmaking and continue to do so now.
Philippines New Wave
John A. Lent wrote in the Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film: In 1982, the government's censoring agency was strengthened again, arbitrarily accusing films it believed were not in line with Imelda Marcos's "true, good, and beautiful" campaign of being subversive. Among these films was Bagong Boy Condenado (New Boy Condenado) because of its depiction of a girl being raped by a man in uniform and scenes portraying Philippine poverty. Because they dealt with slums, poverty, and other lessthan-beautiful aspects of the "New Society," Brocka's films suffered from government scissors and proclamations. His Bayan ko: Kapit sa patalim (Bayan Ko: My Own Country, 1985) was disallowed as the Philippine entry in the Cannes Film Festival unless he cut scenes of protest rallies. [Source: John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
With Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, or The Nail of Brightness, 1975), Brocka forged a new direction in Philippine cinema, one that treated film as art, not bakya: the film introduced a new trend toward realism and social consciousness, experimented with directorial and acting techniques, and developed new talent. In this fold were Brocka, Ishmael Bernal (1938–1996), Behn Cervantes, Eddie Romero (b. 1924), Mike De Leon (b. 1947), and others who tackled issues such as labor exploitation, marginal people in Manila, poverty, national identity, and the unwanted US military bases in the Philippines.
The "new wave" of aesthetically and politically attuned films did not last, dissipated by the regression of film to formulaic, escapist melodrama, action, and bomba types, and the untimely deaths of Brocka and Bernal in the early 1990s. Although the government of Corazon Aquino (1986–1992) dismantled some of the repressive Marcos film infrastructure and legislation, it did little to encourage artful filmmaking or to halt the slide to bakya -oriented movies.
Throughout the 1980s, the Philippines ranked among the top ten film-producing countries of the world, although the number of features continued to drop. The industry was beset with problems, some brought on by the monopolization of nearly all aspects of production, distribution, and exhibition by three film studios—Regal, Seiko, and Viva. Major stars were signed to large, exclusive contracts by the big studios, depleting movie budgets and forcing smaller producers out of existence. Filmmaking was increasingly tainted by what scriptwriter Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr. termed the "stench of commercialism."
Philippine Films after Marcos
It can be justified that immediately after Marcos escaped to Hawaii, films portraying the Philippine setting have had a serious bias against the former dictator. And even while he was in power, the militancy of filmmakers opposing the Martial Law government especially after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, accounts for the defiant stance of a number of films made in the closing years of the Marcos rule. [Source: aenet.org/family/filmhistory ]
Films such as Lino Brocka’s Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (My Country: Gripping the Knife’s Edge, 1985) were defiant, not in the sense of it being openly stated by in the images of torture, incarceration, struggle and oppression. Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Karnal (1984) depicts this in a different way in the film’s plot wherein patricide ends a tyrannical father’s domination. Mike de Leon’s Sister Stella L. (1984), was a typical de Leon treatment of the theme of oppression and tyranny.
In 1977, an unknown Filipino filmmaker going by the name of Kidlat Tahimik made a film called Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare). The film won the International Critic’s Prize in the Berlin Film Festival that same year. Kidlat Tahimik’s rise to fame defined the distance between mainstream cinema and what is now known as independent cinema. Beginning with Tahimik, independent cinema and films became an accomplished part of Philippine film.
Out of short film festivals sponsored by the University of the Philippines Film Center and by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, young filmmakers have joined Kidlat Tahimik in the production of movies that, by their refusal to kowtow to the traditions and conventions of mainstream filmmaking, signify faith in works that try to probe deeper into the human being and into society. Nick Deocampo’s Oliver (1983) and Raymond Red’s Ang Magpakailanman (The Eternal, 1983) have received attention in festivals abroad.
Filmmakers like Tahimik, Deocampo and Red are examples of what we call “alternative filmmakers”. Alternative or independent filmmakers are products of film schools where students are exposed to art films without “the compromises of commercial filmmaking”.
Philippines Film in the 1990s
The focus on commercialisation and monopolisation in the Philippines film industry has had a debilitating effect on the profession. There are too few trained actors and actresses, and stories are based on 'hot' stars, especially those willing to undress. Sex films are less expensive, quicker and easier to produce, and they make up well over half of a year's total production. They have their own persona, typed as FF ('fighting fish'), penekula (derived from 'penetration'), ST ('sex trip', featuring young actresses having sex at socially appropriate times) and TT ('titillating', with split-second frontal nudity). They feature actresses named after soft drinks or hard liquor, such as Pepsi Paloma and Vodka Zobel. [Source: John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
However, there have been breakaways from these genres, particularly the works of Marilou Diaz-Abaya (b. 1955), such as José Rizal (1998), which depicts the life and death of the national hero; Muro-Ami (Reef Hunters, 1999), which highlights child labour in the fishing industry; and Bagong Buhay (New Moon, 2001), which explores personal loss in war-torn Mindanao. A new generation of filmmakers has come to prominence since the late 1990s.
Notable members include Chito S. Roño, who directed three thrillers in 1995 alone, followed by Bata, Bata… Paano Ka Ginawa (Child… How Were You Made?, also known as Lea's Story, 1998); Joel Lamangan, whose most successful film was The Flor Contemplacion Story (1995), based on the true story of an overseas worker who murdered her Singaporean employer; and José Javier Reyes, a prolific filmmaker who wrote and directed twenty-one films between 1991 and 1996.
Encouragingly, the number of independent film and video directors working on the periphery or outside the mainstream also increased. These include Raymond Red (b. 1965), who made two historical films, Bayani (Heroes, 1992) and Sakay (1993), and Nick Deocampo (b. 1959), who finished Mother Ignacia, ang uliran (Mother Ignacia, the Ideal) in 1998. These and other nonmainstream directors have experimented with format, technique, and content, and, increasingly, they hail from areas outside Manila, such as the Visayas or Iloilo.
Philippines Film in the 2000s
Following the economic crisis of 1997–98, the film industry experienced a brief resurgence. In 1999, the Philippines was the fourth largest film producer in the world, but the number of productions declined sharply after that — to 89 in 2001 and even fewer after that. Several factors, both new and old, contributed to this decline, including the expensive star system, high taxation (with at least seventeen different taxes taking up to 30–42 percent of earnings), the absence of a quota on imported foreign films, widespread film piracy facilitated by technology, and censorship. [Source: John A. Lent, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Learning, 2007]
Both Toro (Live Show, 2001) and Sutka (Silk, 2000) were censored, and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who took office in 2001, sometimes intervened directly in the filmmaking process. Escalating production costs, especially in the context of the fragile national economy, ongoing government instability, and shrinking cinema audiences, compelled major studios to reduce production schedules. The industry also faced stiff competition from cable television, videos, DVDs and VCDs.
These were critical times for Filipino film, but not fatal. With increased worldwide interest in Asian cinema, particularly from China, Hong Kong, India, South Korea and Taiwan, and the tendency of film to reinvent itself through universally appealing content, lavish multifunction theatres, clever capitalisation schemes, digital technology and tie-ins with other media and visual forms, the Philippines film held on to some degree.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993; “Culture Shock!: Philippines” by Alfredo Roces and Grace Roces, Marshall Cavendish International, 2010; National Geographic, Live Science, Philippines Department of Tourism, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Library of Congress, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Google AI, Wikipedia, The Guardian and various websites, books and other publications.
Last updated March 2026