Welcome to the Metro Filmfest 2000! - FUNFARE by Ricardo F. Lo

It’s guaranteed: The ongoing Metro Filmfest 2000 showcases among the best of local films. It’s been a long time since the annual Metrofest has chosen such excellent entries (the so-called "Magic-6"), not since more than two decades ago when it featured the works of topnotch directors (among them Eddie Romero’s Banta ng Kahapon, Eddie Garcia’s Atsay, Lupita Kashiwahara’s Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamo).

This year’s entries close the old millennium with a big bang, which is a good way to usher in the new millennium for the movie industry which is only now gradually recovering from a prolonged slump brought about by several causes, including unfair competition from cable TV and film pirates, onerous taxes and plain loss of interest on the part of the movie fans forced to rather stay home and turn on the TV set and watch ’em superstars for free (look, Ma, we don’t have to cope with the traffic jam and the rigors of dressing up).

These past few months, local movies have been luring movie fans back to moviehouses. You see, if ’em producers make good movie, ’em fans will come.

This year’s Metrofest will make you cry (don’t forget to bring Kleenex), laugh and laugh, examine your conscience, cry some more, marvel at the exploits of a police officer and, fasten your seat belts, make you take a flight to fantasy.

Here are the Magic 6 and what to expect from them:

* Star Cinema’s Tanging Yaman, directed by Laurice Guillen, a family drama that will pinch your heart and hug your mother as soon as you get home

* GMA Films’ Deathrow, directed by Joel Lamangan, is another drama that focuses on inmates of death row, including minors who shouldn’t be there

* Millennium Cinema’s The Ping Lacson Story, directed by Toto Natividad, is the story of perhaps the country’s most controversial police officer

* RVQ Films’ Markova: Comfort Gay, directed by Gil M. Portes, is the true story of a female impersonator’s harrowing experience in the hands of sex-starved Japanese soldiers during the war

* MAQ Films’ Spirit Warriors, directed by Chito Roño, is an adventure-fantasy with amazing special effects

* Regal Films’ Sugatang Puso, directed by Joey Javier Reyes, is another family drama designed to squeeze your lachrymal glands some more.