As far as experimental goes, Soul of a Fortress (1964) was a trailblazer. Directed by Ferdie Grofe, and produced by Ben Pinga, Soul of a Fortress won the Silver medal in the Bilbao Filmfest. The film gave birth to the experimental documentary as sub-genre of Pinoy indie filmmaking.

Aside from the film, the name Ben Pinga should also be remembered. He was one of the first teachers of film subjects in the country. He taught at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) and the De La Salle University. Pinga established the Film Institute of the Philippines under PLM, and became the faculty of PLM’s Department of Cinema and TV in 1970, the first in the country. Later, Pinga led the OSFILM or Organization of Specialized Filmmakers. “Specialized” is Pinga’s term for non-mainstream films.

These early works were mostly documentaries, but in the Sixties, Pinoy filmmakers moved to another path, the personal films. Michael Parsons (an American living Pinas) did his black and white shorts like The Wall and Las Munecas. In Greenwich Village in New York, Pinoy indie filmmaker Henry Francia’s On My Way to India Consciousness, I Reached China was toasted by Jon Mekas, the American underground’s Svengali. Of course there was poet and playwright Virgie Moreno with her Orfo Marino, her project with cinematographer Romy Vitug. The list of names and awards is quite long, and it’s stored in the Library or Archives Department of the Movie Workers Welfare Fund or Mowelfund,.

But one filmmaker sprouted like a giant mushroom in the middle of a rice field. His alias is Kidlat Tahimik (Thunder Quiet or Quiet Thunder), and his ground-breaking film, Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare). In a statement on the movie, Tahimik said his movie was about being trapped in the “cocoon of American dreams.” as he himself grew up in Baguio eating burgers and French fries. He made the movie after he was stranded in Europe on another business and he ran into German filmmaker Warner Herzog (Aguirre Wrath of God and the remake of Nosferatu). With $10,000 Tahimik made the movie (while simultaneously learning how to make a movie) using outdated film stock and found and stock footage. It tells the story of a jeepney driver transplanted to Paris who discovers how progress undercuts the values he holds dear.

It premiered at the Berlin Filmfest’s Young Filmmakers Forum in June 25, 1977. Eventually, it was awarded Prix de La Critique Internationale by the FIPRESCI, and garnered a long list of international citations, including a distribution deal with Francis Ford Coppola.

Kidlat Tahimik (Eric de Guia) made a series of other films like Turumba, Why is Yellow The Middle of the Rainbow and others, mainly out of his own pocket, using a Bolex 16mm and an editing bench in his hometown Baguio. To this day, Perfumed Nightmare is living proof that feature films do not need movie stars, a big budget, and a small mind. To most of us filmmakers, Kidlat Tahimik is our electrified big daddy. Whether he acknowledges us or not. For after Kidlat and those before him, another generation of indies was born.

And just who are the next generation indies?

Film workshops at universities and at Mowelfund became the nurseries of new filmmakers. Cinema-As-Art workshops at the University of the Philippines Film Center, under Virgie Moreno lit the fuse, providing Super-8 cameras and films to students to use in their projects. Eventually, Mowelfund (the Social Security System of mainstream movie workers) started giving workshops through its Mowelfund Film Institute (MFI). Originally it was meant to train people already working in the movie industry. But eventually it attracted students from the U.P Film Center and other schools.

For years MFI tied up with the German Cultural Center (Goethe Institut) which provided equipment and funding for Super-8 and 16mm short films. But more importantly, Goethe Institut brought in teachers. These teachers nurtured the novices along the road of experimentation and exploration and made them see film as plastic material, and ideas, no matter how wild, as tools in concocting the students’ own version of the universe.

From collaborations of Raymond Red and Ian Victoriano (Ang Magpakailanman, Kamada, Kabaka, etc), to Ricky Orellana et. al.’s impressionist short-docu (Sa Maynila), to Rox Lee’s (Great Smoke) and Mike Alcazaren’s (Hari) animations, short films became the weapon of choice for indies. It is cheap, lightweight, and razor sharp.

Of course the awards kept coming from all over. Like Tronong Puti by Rox Lee winning Special Jury Prize in a festival in Tunisia, while Mike Alcazaren’s Hari won Bronze in the same festival. At the Young Filmmakers Cinema Competition in Montreal,

Raymond Red’s Sketches bagged silver. But the biggest winner was Joey and Roby Agbayani’s Kidlat (Lightning).

This experimental short satire was a finalist in the 17th Annual Student Films Awards, Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences (also known as the Oscars). It did not win but it went the farthest of all Pinoy films, Hollywood-wise that is. At home, it won Best Short Film at the 13th Gawad Urian and 8th Film Academy of the Philippines Awards.

There were other schools, that offered film courses, but it was the MFI workshops that offered intensive hands-on training in film production well into the 1990s. In fact some students from U.P. College of Mass Communication’s Film Department attended workshops at MFI to prepare for the production of their thesis film. Sari Dalena, Katrina Villa, and R.A. Rivera all won Best Thesis Film award from U.P. after attending workshops at MFI.

Nestled inside the spacious Mowelfund Plaza in Cubao, with its balete trees and shapely swimming pool, MFI became the de facto home of the indie. Aside from the workshops, it’s a place to hang-out in with other filmmakers. Jobs can be found there too. Even Christmas parties for indies were held there. It was on the MFI grounds that indie filmmakers became a small community.

A small group, the Cinemanos Collective, even branched out of just producing short films. The Cinemanos brought their 35 and 16mm shorts to school in the schoolyears 1996-97 and 1997-98. Cinematographers Neil Daza, Robert Quebral, Miguel Fabie, and Reuben Lee, with writer directors, Chuck Escasa, Joey Tam, Tito Quesada and Sari Dalena went to almost 30 schools in those two school years. They held open forums with students after the screenings. The project, supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), was called “Sinebiyahe.”

And just where are the indie filmmakers going?

After a scriptwriting workshop at the UP Film Department in 1997, this writer, along with other workshoppers was invited by one of our classmates to a meet-and-greet with Regal Films boss, Mother Lily. This was a time of great crisis for the movie industry. In 1996, Fernando Poe Jr. and Vilma Santos, two highly bankable stars, did a movie together called Ikaw ang Mahal Ko under FPJ Productions. It tanked at the box-office, and the movie industry went into a tailspin.

That debacle merely confirmed the signs of illness of the movie industry. Pinoy movie goers have outgrown the movie industry and its retarded movies. And so there we were, deep inside enemy territory talking project development with a notorious producer. Of course nothing in our lives as indies prepared us for the experience. Regal, after all, was a movie outfit that put out one new film every week, with the abiding formula of “low cost, quick shoot.” And it was this exact formula that we were supposed to follow – develop movies that can be shot in seven to 14 days. They were called pito-pito. The only difference in our case was we were given artistic control. Anything goes, as long as it fit the budget and had a chance at the box-office. Lav Diaz, who was not a part of our group but was also from MFI and a friend of a friend was able to shoot Burger Boys and Ang Kriminal ng Barrio San Geronimo. Ed Lejano of U.P. shot Lunes ng Gabi, Linggo ng Umaga. As for the rest of our group, we either lost patience or lost interest. All the horror stories we heard about the ways of the movie industry were mild compared to first hand experience. (But that’s another article.)

As the zombie movie industry hobbled into the new century, indies went back to the trenches. In the year 2000, after unsuccessful attempts at finding local producers for his third feature film, Raymond Red returned to short films. Plucking money from his pocket and support from friends, Raymond produced the 13 minute short Anino, sent it to Cannes to compete with over 700 other short films from all over the world. Anino won the Palm d ‘Or, Best Short Film of the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Heaps of articles were written about the winning, and one critic pointed out that Anino did what Lino Brocka’s feature films Jaguar (in competition 1980) and Bona (1981 Director’s Fortnight) failed to do, which was to win Cannes’s top prize.

The indie community of course cheered Raymond, while movie industry institutions held toasts for him. Which was odd, because when Raymond sought help from the Film Development Foundation, he was refused. The Foundation said it only assists full length feature films. Was that myopia or ignorance? Take your pick.

It might take several lifetimes for a Pinoy filmmaker to win another Palm d ‘Or. In the meantime Pinoy indies today have more doors open to them than at anytime. First there are the grants available from the NCCA. And there are the cable channel productions. For two years now Dream Cable’s Cinemalaya is doling out 500 Gs each to 10 filmmakers so they can produce full length films using cash-saving digital video format.

Most notable of these works is Raymond Lee and Michiko Yamamoto’s production. Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Olivares. It seemed to win every award in every international film festival and was screened at Sundance this year. It’s also one of 70 odd movies nominated for Best Foreign Film in the coming Oscar Awards.

Another cable channel, Cinema One, has its own Cinema One Originals. Seven filmmakers are granted 700 Gs to produce a DV feature. These cable channel productions have a distinct aesthetic flavor, because the producers did not interfere with the filmmakers.

According to Jose Javier Reyes, veteran writer-director, the movie industry used to produce 120-150 films a year. We estimate it would be lucky to produce 25 films this year, not counting the entries to the Metro Manila Filmfest. In fact, according to Reyes, there’s not much difference between what you would see in Pinoy movies today and TV shows, especially since most movie superstars now have their own regular TV show, just to keep working. The mainstream movie industry is six feet under whether it admits it or not.

As for the indie filmmaker, developments in technology are making the craft even more exciting. A personal computer can become an editing machine and create special effects. DV cameras are cheap. And there are cellphones now with built-in video cameras and storage capacity. Plus out-of-work movie actors are now a dime a dozen. It is really an interestinHg time for the indie. Especially for those with something to say and the cajones to remain independent minded.

So if you are the manager of Sharon and Aga, get them to appear in indie films when they are “laos” (has-beens). Indie films and filmmakers bring new life on the screen.•

J.M. Gonzales is a documentary filmmaker who volunteers as a cook during the 10-day Vipassana Meditation courses.