John Lloyd Cruz shaves his head in “Honor Thy Father.”
After being heavily bashed by netizens over its move to disqualify “Honor Thy Father” from this year’s Best Picture race, organizers of the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) on Sunday maintained the producers did not inform the organization on time regarding the film’s participation in another film festival.
READ: Erik Matti’s ‘Honor Thy Father’ opens Cinema One Originals 2015
In a statement, the MMFF executive committee said the organization could have imposed stiffer sanctions to “Honor Thy Father,” such as disqualifying the film from all other awards in the festival.
“After a thorough, lengthy, and careful deliberation, the MMFF decided to impose the lightest sanction of disqualifying HTF from the selection as festival awardee for only the Best Picture category,” the MMFF said in a statement.
“Lest it be forgotten, being included in the MMFF also comes with responsibilities. An official entry is expected to uphold and observe the rules of the festival,” it added.
READ: MMFF disqualifies ‘Honor Thy Father’ from best picture category
The executive committee said the film’s producer wrote them on Oct. 22, saying that “it has complied with all existing MMFF rules and regulations without mentioning its participation in another film festival.”
“Having certified its compliance to all MMFF rules, it was officially included as an entry in the film festival on Oct. 23,” the statement read.
The MMFF said the participation of “Honor Thy Father” as opening film at the Cinema One Film Festival held on Nov. 8 was only revealed to them in a letter dated Nov. 5 and received a day after, “not giving the MMFF enough time to deliberate on the matter.”
Film producer Ronald Stephen Monteverde on Saturday said their camp was denied due process without being given opportunity to air their side.
“We were merely informed of their decision, not given any opportunity to air our side. They sent the letter today. The awarding ceremony is tomorrow. Are they merely being good scouts and sticklers for the rules, even when no rule was broken? Or is there some other reason? Why disqualify the movie only from the Best Picture category and not all categories? Whose interests are being protected by this last-minute decision,” he said. TVJ
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