Filipino Awareness

Here's some food for thought. After the Science Fiction panel at the New Worlds Alliance 5, I managed to join emcee Tobie Abad together with the other speakers at the forum: Kenneth Yu of The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, Joey Nacino, and Professor Emil Flores. One thing Professor Emil Flores brought up was how several local productions are hitting it big in other nations: Jericho Rosales and Kristine Hermosa are big in Malaysia, Christian Bautista is making a name for himself in many Asian countries, Pinoy action films and shows are developing a cult following in the US (Weng Weng comes to mind but also the fact that Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of local films), the film Gagamboy (along with Vhong Navarro's other films) is lauded, and many Filipino action stars can stand toe to toe in film with other Asian martial artists. I think the problem with our nation isn't that we're not developing astounding products but rather that there's a lack of awareness of it (me being previously relatively aware of the anime industry, I know it's not common knowledge for example that many Filipinos are involved in the animation industry). That and our local films lose their mysticism because they are local and mainstream (in the same sense that many non-French are impressed with Amelie).