PELIKULA, ATBP.: August 2019

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Source: The Weekly Nation, March 14, 1966

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A GOOD OMEN FOR THE FAMAS

Re-acceptance of returned trophies by Sampaguita winners reflects renewed confidence in the academy.

By KITCH ORTEGO

THE FAMAS season was ushered in recently with a monumental event – the re-presentation of 29 awards which were returned to the academy in anger in 1959. The body’s gesture was an earnest reaffirmation of its recognition of true excellence, while the recipients’ re-acceptance of the awards was a hearty demonstration of their unruffled respect for the organization.

Some Famas officers saw this a re-emergence of confidence in the academy The awardees, on the other hand, felt that they were just retrieving what had belonged to them all along. True. And Famas president Ramon Lopez corroborated this when he told the awardees, “We are returning to you your statuettes which we just held for safe-keeping.”

In fact when the awardees returned their trophies six years ago they had not actually lost confidence in the Famas, except that the studio under whose sway they were was piqued by some ill-timed academy whim and thereby lost its temper. That the wounds have healed was explained by the presence of Pepito Vera Perez who represented Sampaguita Pictures at the “return” of the awards. He even received all the statuettes of the awardees who could not come.

Thus, everybody was happy again. Rita Gomez expressed her jubilation in tears. Rosa Mia could only manage to whisper, “Thank you, thank you…,” as she gulped down her emotion and kissed her statuette.

Fred Montilla grinned from ear to ear and exclaimed, “My award and I were just separated for a while, we belonged to each other all the time!” Marlene Dauden controlled her feelings, received her statuette solemnly as though she was getting it for the first time.

A Quiet Affair

Carmen Rosales was indisposed at the time. She sent a handsome son to receive the award and express her gratitude. Another awardee represented by proxy was Katy de la Cruz whose daughter Angie was surprised to find out that her Mommie had already got her trophy sometime before in order to be sure about it.

Lolita Rodriguez couldn’t have been more touched. She was overjoyed at having back her award, saying, “This is my only genuine evidence of success which I can show my children and tell them that once I was up there – and a good one too!”

Child star Boy Alvarez was also there, not to reclaim a returned award but to collect a debt. Through a oversight last year, the Famas had no statuette for him as best child star of 1964.

The ceremonies didn’t last long and were not pompous. With only the officers of the academy and executive of Kodak Philippines Inc., donor of the statuettes, witnessing the re-turn-over, the affair was not so formal. Lopez had intended it so in order not to arouse so much publicity and provoke comments. The small VIP Room of the National Press Club was a perfect setting for such a delicate event.

Ad so an old sore in the Famas has been relieved. Credit for the achievement goes to Lopez who had approached Dr. Jose R. Perez of Sampaguita to clear out all misunderstandings between the studio and the academy. Dr. Perez’s response was so illustrative of unshaken confidence that he has decided to submit entries for VP Pictures and United Brothers Productions for this year’s awards.

With the row with Sampaguita settled, the Famas has a few more internal ruffles to smooth up. Its constitution needs some revisions in some portions in order to meet the facts of current trends in the motion picture business. Its provision on the qualification of entries for awards, for instance, cites “…any full-length feature film produced and exhibited in the Philippines,” which includes Hollywood movies shot in the country, but which isn’t the case.

Membership is still a pain in the neck for the academy. The membership committee is aching to weed out members with dubious qualifications and those who are serving as PROs for local movie companies or stars. For the presence of undesirable members discourages qualified prospective members whom the committee yearns to take in.

Revamp Undesirable

A reorganization, the most practical solution to the membership problem, wouldn’t be a convenient action since this would prick personalities. It would also tend to be misconstrued by outsiders as a confession of weakness within the body, as Sampaguita did during the first reorganizational ripple in 1959. A complete revamp should only be a last recourse.

Meanwhile, the Famas has to content itself with what it is – an earnest effort to promote artistic and technical excellence in the Filipino film industry, whose better judgment has generally prevailed.

And despite its inherent shortcomings, the academy has steadily advanced from a small guild riven by conflicting ambitions to an institution of around 50 members who support the common cause of upgrading standards in local films. To broaden the members’ knowledge of motion picture arts and sciences, the academy holds annual symposia on direction, acting, cinematography, sound recording, editing, script-writing, and other pertinent aspects of moviemaking.

This year’s program of learning included showings of artistic foreign pictures, a project made possible by Lopez. There could have been more educational activities but for the lack of time. Actually not much intellectual pursuit is still needed by the academy since its members are generally already capable examiner of films.

What the Famas has yet to attain is financial foundation. It’s so humble as to cash position that it cannot even afford to rent a permanent office or pay a full-time executive secretary. The gala premiere of The Sandpiper it sponsored last summer hardly met the goal. The scarcity of funds is the only blotch on the academy’s prestige.

New Groups Opposed

With its prestige an established fact, the Famas has become an envied organization. A certain group dominated by women, which has had a strong hand in the affairs of the board of censors, is reported by a famous director to have planned giving its own award to deserving Tagalog films and talents. The director, who had been invited by the group to air his views, opposed the plan for the reason that “the Famas is already doing it and has been doing it excellently.”

This is not the first time that other groups have tried to rival the Famas. There was the Manila Film Reviewers’ Guild which fizzled out without having reviewed a picture. Then there was the Film Society of the Philippines which was the result of a defection from the Famas, and didn’t go far either.

Even if other groups succeed in putting up competition against the Famas, the academy has nothing to worry about since any beginner in its kind of undertaking would have a long way to go before it could understand the esoteric arts and techniques behind the film. The reason the Famas didn’t have to undergo a process of absorbing this knowledge was because it started with members who were directly connected with the moviemaking craft, or writers who had covered the movie beat for some time.

The present Famas is far way up from the dissent-ridden association that it was in the beginning. Its members are now solidly united toward the goal of bringing out greatness in the Filipino moviemaker. In this status it has attained its own measure of greatness. Despite complications, which is natural to an endeavor engaged in a complicated pursuit, the academy has become more and more effective as a conferor of merit in the local film industry.

That the Famas can be great again is plain play of words. The correct thing to say for the academy would be, “The Famas can even be greater.”

Source: The Weekly Nation, March 14, 1966

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