MMFF entry fee most expensive in cinema history

The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) has the most expensive submission fee in the history of cinema. It is charging 10 times more than other major festivals, like Cannes, Tribeca and Berlin.”

This claim by Chuck Gutierrez—the producer of MMFF 2016 best picture, “Sunday Beauty Queen”—was recently posted in social media, in reaction to the “exorbitant” fees being required of filmmakers who plan to enter the event.

The fees are as follows: P30,000 for script submissions and P50,000 for completed movies.

These amounts, according to filmmaker JP Habac, on Twitter, “is enough to create a short film.”

However, at a press conference, MMFF executive committee member and spokesperson Noel Ferrer clarified that the application fees were the same as the past years’. According to him, the MMFF charges a heftier price because it guarantees a commercial run, unlike Cannes and the other festivals mentioned.

“This is basically an entry fee for commercial exhibition—they (the producers) can earn. That is the difference,” Ferrer said, adding that the profits made by the MMFF would go to its beneficiaries.

Unlike MMFF 2016, which required producers to submit either completed or picture-locked movies, and the editions before that, which asked only for scripts, this year’s event hopes to find a balance by melding the two rules.

Now, producers and filmmakers are given the choice to submit either a script or a finished film. The selection committee will then put together the eight-movie roster by choosing four from the script entries and another four from the pool of completed movies.

But why is it more expensive to submit a finished movie than a script? Shouldn’t it be the other way around, not a few observers wondered?

According to Ferrer, it all comes down to “operational costs,” which include the honorarium given to the members of the selection committee.

“It costs less money for scripts, because the members of the selection committee can just take the scripts with them for evaluation. For completed movies, on the other hand, we have to book a theater. We have to pay for food, the staff, etc.”

Rolando Tolentino, fellow MMFF executive committee member and a professor at the UP College of Mass Communication, added: “You also have to consider that not all the members of the committee can attend one screening; not all of them will be free at the same time. And so, sometimes, you have to hold alternate screening dates. —ALLAN POLICARPIO