Uni-Mei film conference gathers industry leaders

It’s Future Shock, 2015 version. Local cinema is dead. What reigns supreme are Hollywood and Bollywood movies, anything but Filipino films. The Pinoy stuntman, cameraman, makeup artist, etc. are jobless and have shifted to call centers as means of livelihood.

Scary? You bet. Preventable? Yes, if we do something about it now.

That’s why filmmakers from 12 countries – the Philippines, Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand – met recently at Bayview Hotel for the Uni-Mei conference. The two-day powwow gathered filmmakers to discuss present and future scenarios for a more robust industry.

One of the cogs in the machine is the loosening of free trade in the ASEAN region come year 2015.

The results are not exactly rosy for local cinema. This means more foreign movies can give local films a run for their money in the theaters. Not only that. Free trade also covers services, so there’s no limit in the number of foreign workers who can come and go in film productions. The already burdened movie worker must compete with the influx of foreign workers. They may be cheaper to hire, but what about foreign productions with their built-in crew?

The alarm bells are deafening, too deafening they had to stop ringing.

That’s why director Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, chair of the Education Committee, Directors’ Guild of the Philippines, acted fast. He reported it to the Uni-Mei Asean Media and Culture forum, ASEAN filmmakers in Kuala Lumpur last month. He kept the alarm bells ringing by pounding on a couple of musts.

Film workers must upgrade their skills to be at par with their foreign counterparts. The audience must learn how to appreciate the film language and look at it with a critical eye. The industry must protect itself by pushing for subsidy or the setting aside of more days purely for local films (aside from the existing annual Metro Filmfest, that is).

"Korea sets aside 78 days a year for its films. Europe requires that 50 percent of TV programming comes from the European Union TV. If developed countries set quotas like those, what more developing countries like ours?," asks Siguion-Reyna.

Uni-Mei stepped up to the plate and offered alternatives.

Broken down, point by point, the conference drew up these conclusions:

• The need to get governments to give greater recognition to the film sector as an economic force and a formal industry;

• The need to create ways and means to strengthen industry workers’ bargaining power;

• The need for industry workers to unite to get their voices heard at all levels;

• The importance of greater women participation in the industry;

• The need to move from trade associations into unionization to ensure basic labor rights;

• The need to find ways to enforce contracts between parties;

• The need to create more awareness and educational activities among industry workers and the public;

• The need to identify and win over enemies of the industry;

• The importance of fostering regional and global cooperation and collaboration;

• The need to devise minimum welfare standards for movie workers;

• The need to create effective fora for the exchange of information, knowledge and experience via newsletters and other communications systems; and

• The need to create a database for the film industry on the national, regional and global levels.