INDEPENDENT CINEMA’S 40-YEAR REWRITE

Every last Friday of the month from May to September, the Mowelfund Film Institute in off-grid Cubao is celebrating 40 years of independent cinema, Philippine chapter.

- JUANIYO ARCELLANA

The first Independent Film and Video Festival was, after all, held in the now defunct Wave theater at Araneta Center in 1986, fresh off the EDSA revolution, and now the guardian of cinema's free spirits sees fit to look back, take stock, set new directions for a no longer nascent movement constantly seeking new inspiration while in the midst of a rewrite.

Forty years ago, I wrote in Midweek magazine covering the Wave gig that "something can still be said for Philippine independent cinema." We can recast that and say a whole novel in progress continues to unfold not only right before our eyes in the stone-cold Dengcar Theater on the sixth floor of a building on Rosario Drive cor. Hangilang, near Bety Go Belmonte St., but also in the numerous independent film festivals from Cinemalaya to Sinag Maynila, to the Puregold-sponsored Cinepanalo down to the regional forays from young, bright and hitherto unheard-of directors wanting to make their mark in the constantly shifting landscape of film.