Cinemalaya apologizes for uploading of films on YouTube

Screengrab from https://www.cinemalaya.org/

MANILA, Philippines — The Cinemalaya Film Festival on Sunday reiterated its apology to filmmakers who were affected by the alleged leak of full-length films on YouTube.

“We wish to publicly apologize to the filmmakers and producers for the uploading their films last night,” Cinemalaya president Nestor Jardin said during the film festival’s awards night at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

During his speech at the start of the event, Jardin said they are already organizing a dialogue with those affected, those behind Cinemalaya films released in 2012 and 2013, adding that the videos have already been taken down from the Internet.

Cinemalaya Foundation chairman Antonio Cojuangco, however, said they wanted to post the films on YouTube to convince the public to consider watching and later paying for Cinemalaya films.

“What we intended to do was let the market watch our films even for free,” he said. “We’re getting people to get hooked on our products.

Nevertheless, the festival president said Cinemalaya this year was able to exceed its target of 92,000, reaching 92,222 ticket sales from August 1 to 9 alone.

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