If there’s indie, dapat may “undie,” at kung may Cinemalaya, then there’s got to be a “Sinemalayo.” Finally, what about a fanzine called Cinemaregla?

“Undie” is short for underground, a new term filmmakers Wilfred

Galila and Eric de la Cruz, both 27, want to propagate to replace the overused “indie.”

“Indie has been co-opted by the mainstream,” said Galila during a free May 13th outdoor screening of 16mm and digital shorts at the Marikina Shoe Expo in Cubao, an enclave of shoe stores now overrun by galleries, specialty bookstores, cafes, quirky arty shops and other guerilla enterprises. The event was nailed together by Sinemalayo, a group founded by Galila, De la Cruz and Ruelo Lozendo, who played on the name of Manila’s yearly Cinemalaya indie film fest.

With the local success of independently produced movies in digital format and the increasing support of grants for independent films from institutions like the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Galila sort of misses the romance of an erstwhile small but buzzing film community. Thus, he’s keen on instigating “another scene,” one that he hopes will expand the choices of viewers.

Expanding choices means history lessons from the Mowelfund vaults, which house around 300 short films. For their first Sinemalayo screening, the group got filmmaker and Mowelfund archivist Ricky Orellano to choose and dust off around half-a-dozen shorts from the likes of indie auteur Raymond Red, with a few harking back to the Eighties..

“This is the seed planted by Raymond Red and Roxlee. They were the original underground filmmakers,” Galila said.

“Paala lang sa viewers na ito ang mga nauna sa amin,” De la Cruz added. He also mentions Kidlat Tahimik and Lamberto Avellana as filmmakers who broke ground for aspiring auteurs like himself.

Some of the shorts—projected on a makeshift pinalakang tabing stretched across the second floor window of a shoe store—held up well. The movies were technically proficient, given their close-to-nil budgets. And though a few slunk around in typical arthouse fashion, many more were witty and engaging and actually had plots. They even made the audience laugh.

As for Cinemaregla, the fanzine launched the same night, editor De La Cruz said he borrowed the name from one of a series of fanzines Roxlee put out a few years ago. From what De La Cruz called “our initial flow,” Cinemaregla is scheduled to come out every other month. The Sinemalayo screenings will happen quarterly.