Robbie Tan is reportedly set to resign as monitoring committee head of the annual Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.
“I know that he had wanted to leave since last year to focus on his businesses, and not because of a recent controversy [over a disqualified film],” said Tess Rances, deputy festival director and manager of Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Administrative Services.
Still a member
Festival officials have yet to receive Tan’s resignation. The Inquirer tried but failed to get a statement from him.
Rances said: “Robbie is still a member of the Cinemalaya Foundation board so we’re sure we’d still get his assistance even if he no longer heads the committee. We hope to find the right replacement.”
Work done
Added Laurice Guillen, competition chair: “Maybe Robbie already [finds] our work here exhausting. It’s like we’re producing 15 films a year.”
If Tan leaves, Guillen said, the festival would have lost “two really good people.” Festival director Nes Jardin resigned shortly after the disqualification of “MNL 143” in February.
Guillen explained: “I feel very bad [about this]. Nes is a terrific management person and Robbie understands the creative and marketing aspect of our work very well. He oversees these and a lot more single-handedly—and to think that we are not getting paid to do any of this.”
She added: “Replacing him might mean hiring two or more persons, which could be quite expensive for the festival. Fortunately, our chair [Tonyboy Cojuangco] doesn’t want to stop. He enjoys going to the CCP and seeing all these new films.”
The next festival will be run differently, Guillen said.
“I wonder why all these people who called for a boycott, who protested festival policies, are all here at the CCP right now,” she told the Inquirer.
Committed
Rances added: “All of us are committed to what we started. Like Robbie, we not be here forever, but we will still be a part of it, one way or another.”
Guillen agreed: “The people running the festival are not here indefinitely. We will get old. We will leave eventually, but Cinemalaya will carry on.”
(E-mail mcruz@inquirer.com.ph)