(This piece is a chapter from a book project I am doing tentatively titled as Cinema and Society, references to “later portions” indicate that it is meant to be on a different chapter of that book)
As I was writing this, an old debate resurfaced due to the following circumstances:
- Hollywood hit it big with Universal Pictures’ The Odyssey and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Simultaneously also hits in the local Philippine movie houses.
- Expressions of frustrations against Philippine-produced movies appeared in contrast to these hits, questioning the capacity of Filipino movie producers to make such movies. Eventually, this faction of the debate concluded that this is what turned off “Filipino audiences” against Filipino movies.
- These are all surfacing a week prior to the opening of the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. Defenders of Filipino films are using examples of works done in the context of or similar to the festival to raise their disagreement with the questioning. Citing the varied nature of cinema that can potentially exist outside of the context of the blockbuster.
The discourse is quite all over the place and weighing each point will be counterproductive instead of just focusing on how we should understand this problem. Since this is an old problem, we can just summarize it with a single (albeit, complex) object of inquiry: the state of Philippine cinema.
An interesting response to this was raised by film director / producer, Pedring Lopez, who, prior to his take, ranted about his perceived gatekeeping rampant in the “industry.” The gist of his point: he thinks that “we’re limiting ourselves by believing the Philippine box office is the only market that matters”. His suggestion leans toward an “outward looking” orientation: “building an industry” grounded on a “long-term strategy to build an ecosystem where filmmakers can consistently access financing, international co-productions, global distribution, and sustainable careers.” It looks good in theory, but the suggestion is exposed as misguided, worse misinformed, when scrutinized from the practical example he pointed:
Countries like Thailand, South Korea, and now Indonesia didn’t wait until they became wealthy enough to make bigger films. They deliberately built industries. They attracted international productions, created incentives, brought in foreign investment, strengthened distribution, and treated film as an export business, not just a domestic one.
These three national cinemas Lopez cited have quite an interesting history to them that to say that “they treated film as an export business” is to mischaracterize the shape that they molded their respective industries the past 20 years or so. These three national cinemas, with South Korea in particular, in fact argue something contrary to what Lopez was prescribing: their histories are strong cases of nationalization of Cinema. What appears now with Lopez’ statement is an explicitly, and merely, ideological pronouncement that aims toward resolving a personal goal rather than a strategy vindicated by real history. This ideological pronouncement, in my view, is related to his rant against his perceived “gatekeeping” of the industry. But his perceived solution to the state of Philippine cinema might be closer to what is actually happening now, but not in the way that he thinks it should go.
What I intend to do is to scrutinize this claim for now because it is a good symptom to answer: it points where it hurts, where the sickness might be, but the cure might be wrong because what is identified are merely the symptoms. In Lopez’ mind is a myth that Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea’s film industries are export-oriented because he sees it as an outsider, without trying to peek inside despite the abundant data made available publicly by each industry. This section intends to do that favor of presenting how it really went for each national cinema, and eventually, also, try to compare them to the fate of our own in the Philippines to see where Lopez and his export-oriented solution stumbles, and where he got it right. A disclaimer: I am deliberately trying to avoid talking about the arthouse and festival circuit for now but they will play an important role in a different section of this project. But let us settle now that when we refer to “international market” here, we are talking about distribution channels in general, which means landing territorial releases outside of their respective domestic audiences.
The Unmasking the Myth of Export-orientedness in Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea
Thailand
Thailand’s national cinema may be the closest to what Lopez was suggesting, but in a very different manner. Its film industry banked on an already existing infrastructure in tourism. Thailand has reportedly earned 7.7 billion Baht through outsourcing location, personnel and post-production services in 2025.[1] Very few to almost none have seen this influencing in a primary manner how local productions are getting produced.
Interestingly, however, of the four countries (including the Philippines) that I will be talking about here, Thailand has had the most aggressive form of protectionism: in 1977, Thailand increased the tax on 35mm film print imports from 2.20 baht per meter to 30 baht per meter.[2] This resulted in a sustained boycott of the Thai film market from the United States from 1977 to 1981.[3] In effect, a growth in film production happened averaging at 100 movies per year during this period.[4] The tax was cut to 10 baht by the early 1990s,[5] and, affected by the Asian financial crisis of 1997, resulted in a sharp decline in production from 100 movies per year to 9 movies in 2000.
Nonetheless, the case above of Thailand exploiting their tourism as a strategy for attracting foreign investment is the closest that we can see them having a real, functioning export industry in relation to film. But this comes with a cost: the state has been spending roughly four times more in subsidizing foreign film productions (from 2018 to 2023) than it actually is funding its own film productions.[6] By the end of it, as the policy has been already in its mature phases, we can presume that aggressive export of aspects of the film industry does not guarantee that a revitalization will be fed back to domestic production.
But its own domestic market is just as strong. In 2024 alone, Thai cinema saw a record high local admission for domestically produced films of 54% market share in contrast to Hollywood’s 38% with eight local titles crossing the 100 million baht, the first in several years that domestic films have defeated foreign productions. But this is within the context of a shrinking market.[7]
A special outlier in this phenomenon was the release of the film, Lanh Mah (How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies), produced by GDH. Lanh Mah also saw great success in international market, earning 87% of its total gross outside of Thailand, but some factors must be considered as to how this case was already historically determined: the film was produced by GDH which is already reputable within the domestic market, possibly Thailand’s largest film production outfit, has been a hitmaker for two decades.[8] Which means, prior to exportation, it has a strong domestic infrastructure to ensure its development and distribution deployment. They also have secured international sales in 12 territories prior to domestic release, albeit mainly concentrated in the Southeast Asian Region and some parts of East Asia due to proximity in sensibilities.
For the past 20 years, film export from Thailand has been more of a game of chance than strategy. Thai practitioners say this themselves: after the mid-2000s Ong-Bak/Shutter success, disappointing follow-ups caused the Thai film brand to fade, and the industry may now be in the same position again.[9] It can also be seen stylistically that there is no single-guarantee of international success by merely appealing to what a hypothetical international market would like. As mentioned above, the 2000s saw Thailand between the fame of Ong-Bak and Shutter riding the Asian wave of genre works with J-Horror as a particular driver, it pushed to prominence certain filmmaking figures such as the Pang Brothers and Nonzee Nimibutr. The reach was really international, but was harder to follow up.
2010s saw Thai films getting consolidated within the Southeast Asian Region, pushing further local popular blockbusters banking on stars such as Mario Maurer especially in the hits A Crazy Little Thing Called Love (2010) and Pee Mak (2013). Hits of similar genre and teen-oriented sensibility were also scattered across the Southeast Asian region: ATM: Er Rak Error (2012), I Fine, Thank You, I Love You (2014), capping in the runaway hit, Bad Genius (2017). The 2020s, so far, have only seen 2 films which can be considered as real international hits: the aforementioned Lanh Mah and The Medium (which, among other films mentioned here, is the only one that underwent international co-production in a major way, being carried both by GDH and Showbox from South Korea.)
Despite fleeting and inconsistent presence in the international film market, we can say that what enabled this persistence of Thai cinema in the international stage was a strong national industry that took care of its domestic audience. From how I see it, the Thais do not deliberately look outward but rather navigate what they are and, for the last 20 years, have established a certain ground where they can retain their consistency in quality without compromising their identity.
Indonesia
Indonesian cinema, the industry, grew at an overwhelming pace over the past 20 years. The Suharto regime saw a good chunk of filmic activities domestically but they were never reliable so as to establish an “industry” while several of its horror films are being seen internationally for its shock factor (Mystics of Bali (1981) for example), but it is best assumed that Indonesian cinema is seldom taken seriously to be accommodated by other territories. By the rabid market liberalization of the Suharto regime in the 1990s, Indonesian films lost a great deal in competition against Hollywood, Hong Kong, and Indian markets.
The Reformasi period saw the rise of independent filmmaking reflecting a renewed sense of filmmaking attitude in the population. Interestingly, it is also these independent productions that drove the domestic market with hits such as Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? (2002), Arisan! (2003), and Janji Joni (2005).[10] This drive saw similar patterns with how it became in Thailand in the 2010s: a domestic film market driven by youth-oriented films. The prominence of the works of the filmmakers Riri Riza and Joko Anwar during this decade was also present in the international festival scene.
These developments did not go unnoticed by the Indonesian government. It is worth noting in 2009 that Indonesia made a great revision to its overall film-related policy under the Film Law of 2009 (Undang-undang (UU) Nomor 33 Tahun 2009). Of note is their institutionalization and implementation of exhibition quotas for domestic theaters, obliging them to dedicate a minimum of 60% of their total screening hours over 6 consecutive months.[11] This regulation has both an economic and ideological rationale, citing the prevention of foreign cultural domination as a major note. Another peculiar, but sensible, regulation is their prohibition from dubbing imported films into Bahasa Indonesia.[12] This disadvantages films from other nations whose language is not spoken by the Indonesian population, given the wider presence of movie-going audiences outside the city centers.
Among other protectionist measures is their prohibition on vertical integration of film business. A single business actor in film, whether in production, distribution, or exhibition, cannot own other businesses on other aspects of film business to avoid monopoly.[13] They treat monopoly ten times more seriously (100 billion RP) than uncensored obscenity (10 billion RP) in 2009. The 2020 amendment of the law now had softer enforcement on vertical integration but is still prohibited.
But here’s the caveat: the quota was never strictly enforced but is just there providing a sense of uncertainty for businesses. On this end, from what I can surmise, cinemas just followed suit knowing the existing law. A strong national audience support led to an Indonesian domestic film production activity that is in a steady incline, averaging about 90-120 features annually from 2008 to 2017, to 130 to 200 feature movies before the 2020 COVID 19 pandemic. In fact, there was an optimistic view of the industry that led to a production bottleneck amounting to an estimated 289 completed features in 2020 alone but due to the lockdowns, only few of those features were released, enjoying 19 million domestic attendances. Some of these features eventually found themselves landing on streaming sites which became a persisting trend, or was released theatrically when the lockdowns were lifted.
It is as if the film industry was unchallenged by other media that, by 2024, they reached a record number of an approximately 80-82million domestic attendance to Indonesian feature films, 65% of total number of domestic attendances, beating foreign films for the first time in years.[14]
It is not as if there weren’t any international exports from Indonesia, but they are a handful out of around 90-120 features that define their film industry. A common occurrence was that these films of international prominence were picked up by international distributors rather than actively being sold outside mostly due to the prominence of people involved, by Joko Anwar in particular and the rising promotion of Pencak Silat through The Raid films. The law sees these export motions more as cultural than economic exchange. A 2026 study highlighted that the effects of film exports in contrast to its domestic market to the whole of Indonesian cinema remains marginal and, for some sentiments, “negligible.”[15] International co-productions also existed within the industry; however, the number is quite marginal too (perhaps only siding on less than five prominent filmmakers).
Indonesia’s strong nationalist protectionist measures pushed their creative industry activity, in particular in the film industry, to grow at a steady pace, carrying their local audiences with them by horizontally expanding to the borders of the Java islands and beyond, constructing new movie theaters for audiences to come to house 200 or so domestic features annually waiting to be screened. Weirdly enough, these gains have been incremental despite Film’s removal from Indonesia’s Negative Investment List, opening the Film industry towards liberalization since 2016.[16] This means that aspects of businesses in film have been open to foreign ownership, with the South Korean mogul CJ buying BlitzMegaplex cinema chains integrating them to their CJ CGV cinema line, finishing its majority ownership in 2017.[17] But as mentioned earlier, gains from foreign investment have been negligible in comparison with the organic support from the movie viewing public for domestic films.
South Korea
I think we can summarize the success of South Korean cinema due to a series of extremely reactive decisions that worked for the benefit not just of their national cinema, but their national industries at large. But they were always a flourishing industry, and the South Korean film industry did not grow from a low base. It was, however, destroyed after having been a functioning one. Film historians recall a golden age in the 1960s that really made their film industry a major feat in East Asia. By 1966, they had a very strict quota that the theaters should screen no less than 6 domestic movies a week within a 90 day period or so.[18] Which means that they hold the majority of their own Film market. This is well within the first five years of the militarist administration of Park Chung Hee. Eventually, this same administration led several economic reforms that favor export-orientedness and favoring American interests, at the point of them actively joining the Vietnam War.
Within the Martial Law led by President Chun Doo-hwan from 1979, South Korea’s policy on film quota became softer until by 1985, the movie theaters had the lowest domestic guarantee for film exhibition, allowing only 2/5ths of the day for mandatory screening time. When Roh Tae-woo won the South Korean democratic elections in 1987, they sought an empowered trade relationship with the United States which led them to fully lift off the quota for domestic features. At the time, Korean films held 27% of their own market.[19] By 1993, their hold dwindled to 15.94%. The liberalization of the Korean Film Market worked precisely as intended and nearly extinguished the domestic industry.
A factor that can be comparable to what Indonesia has been doing since the 1990s was that protectionist measures were made in place to ensure the existence of a market for domestic products. But unlike Indonesia where vertical integration of businesses is forbidden, South Korea thrived exactly because of this strategy. In the 1990s, in the support of a dwindling industry, conglomerates (big trading companies with diverse business interests) tried their hand at film production. Marriage Story was released by Samsung in 1992 and was considered the first chaebol film investment within full vertical integration of businesses. Which means that Marriage Story’s release was carefully planned out and executed by the conglomerate from its development, production, post-production, distribution, promotion, and exhibition, owning each of the businesses along the way. The success of the film led to an attractive venture for other conglomerates at the time to invest in Korean movies. But there was still a threat from Hollywood due to the market liberalization, which is why the Film Promotion Act was passed in 1996, enacting a 146-day quota for Korean Theaters to show only Domestic movies to motivate production.[20] However, the IMF crisis of 1997 led the bigger conglomerates to back away from film production. Few conglomerates and subsidiaries, like CJ (now a subsidiary of Samsung) and Lotte persisted and eventually became the giants of their industry now.
Yet, South Korea’s film industry suffered a different blow during the IMF Crisis, unable to fulfill the demand imposed by the quota. At the time, some commenters viewed the quota system counterproductive to the film industry. Due to pressures from the United States, the quota days were cut in half as part of the conditions for them to sign the US-Korea Bilateral Investment Treaty (2006).[21] Even more businesses backed off film production to reduce the risk of failing. Weirdly, while expecting to go against the Film industry itself, the quota system was seen as an advantage by movie theatres.
The quota system itself does not really say that the 76 days must be filled with several films. The movie theaters, according to Jimmyn Parc, “have more incentive now to fill up the mandatory 73 days with a few promising and popular Korean movies in order to reduce commercial uncertainty and maximize their business profits.”[22] In effect, this raised the competitiveness among Korean movies with the market incentivizing quality, leaving however, the competition within very few players creating an “oligopolistic” situation among few successful films.
This resulted in a trend peculiar to South Korea: despite a glaring number of foreign releases in their theaters (coming from USA, Japan, China, etc), Korean releases still dominated the market share in 2024 at 58%.[23] What this means for them is that while quantitatively overwhelmed by foreign releases, the protection in place for domestic releases ensured continued and growing patronage towards their market. What’s more, it cannot be denied anymore how South Korea now competes in quality against the other industries and for almost a decade and a half now stands shoulder to shoulder against the world’s biggest players in film.
It is important to note however that reaching a point of confidence in quality made the South Korean film industry also confident in their export. While we are still talking in millions, the contribution of Film exports to the total revenue of the Korean film industry has not exceeded 6% annually since 2013. In 2024, while Korean films earned domestically at around 900million dollars, the revenue of their exports is roughly 42 million dollars or around 5.1%.[24] It is also important to note, however, that the top performers in the film industry for 2024 were K-Pop concert documentaries which also contributed meaningful shares of film exports that year.[25]
Unlike Indonesia, the success of the South Korean film industry does not rely on policies alone; however, regulations helped lay the ground where the private industry players can navigate, test, and eventually, establish the market that their National industry is at the moment. But this can never be possible without the state’s push for rapid industrialization just after the Korean War that led to the establishment of their domestic private institutions while, of course, retaining a very rigid class structure that made concentration of capital and its feedback within the industry possible. While domestic analysts like Jimmin Parc are cynical about the effects of the quota, from what we can surmise, it provides a protective measure that, like how it was with how it went with Thailand, if lifted off, will be exploited by imperialist hounds.
Comparing the Three National Cinemas against the Philippine Context
The case studies cited above from the three national cinemas Lopez has mentioned, proved that their industries treating films as “export products” was not primarily the case. While the three indeed participated in film exports, the conditions that led them to the practice provide varied but intertwining similarities. The most similar thing that the three National cinemas did to ensure their footing was to really develop and grow their own domestic markets that became the backbone of what eventually became their film industries at the present. It helps that they measure the impact of their activities by the number of attendances first, and only their revenue second. In a purely market perspective, despite dwindling shares of the market the past years, they are seen as very strong markets. Strong enough to actually attract foreign investors. In the case of South Korea, they also patronize these other two national cinemas, maybe because of this image of a strong market (some caveat: Thailand and Indonesia have relaxed some aspects of economic protectionism the past 10 years).
This strength was never gained through an active pursuit of exterior support; in fact, in the case of the two stronger markets, Indonesia and South Korea, it is the opposite that made them stronger: a history of nationalist protectionism forced their respective markets to prioritize their own products (of course, there are particular nuances not explored in this essay especially within their political context, but I will leave that to other critics to look into). What I think is at play here is that these motions for protectionism came from an understanding of a state that came from crises:
- with Thailand, coming from a tumultuous period of uprisings and regime change, economic policies that look at stability is often taken, and their taxation against imported films, which at the time may have deemed foreign films as non-essential to their national mission, made their own industry thrive;
- in the case of Indonesia, they just came from dictatorship and the renewed sense of nationhood within the Reformasi also affected how they present themselves to each other, and eventually to the world;
- South Korea’s many changing film policies have been a series of revisions based on imperialist pressures that affected their society as a whole.
How do these compare in the case of contemporary Philippine cinema? I want to answer this question first within the parameters set by Lopez’ suggestions. Let me start with his own conclusion of what the problem is: “What we’ve lacked is a long-term strategy to build an ecosystem where filmmakers can consistently access financing, international co-productions, global distribution, and sustainable careers.”
Indeed, there is a lack of long-term strategy from the governing bodies to address these issues, but if we look at the histories of the three national cinemas studied above, they also do not have one. How they dealt with their industries has been a series of revision after revision with their own legislation. What’s different from Lopez’ suggestion is that they never questioned “access to financing” since they operate in an industrial capitalist sense: there are already existing businesses that operate on an industrial scale and that these businesses sustain themselves by taking care of their own domestic markets. The question of “access to financing” is answered by the another question: “how to attain a self-sustaining industry?” In the case of South Korea, consumers (which include analysts and critics) tend to get pampered that their feedback is often taken deeply into consideration in the development of new products. Of course, that sense of extreme populism has its own issues, but from a purely capitalist market perspective, this works for their sustainability.
Again, this strength, from what I can surmise, is what attracted foreign investors to the three national cinemas discussed above, with their own particular caveats. With Thailand, there is an explicit foreign-facing aspect of the film business that exploits a specific character of their nation through film tourism. While as mentioned above, this has negligible impact on the revenue that goes to the film industry and mostly favors foreign productions in subsidy. They have never recovered from the loss of lifting protectionist measures and now have their international market bids as a gamble.
What made Indonesia and South Korea’s film industry strong can be deemed as an “if you can’t beat them, join them” situation for outside lookers. Market regulation is itself an expression of political will. Since they limit their own playing field for outsiders, another way for imperialist capital to seep in is to invest in the very products that the domestic market prioritizes. In the case of South Korea, this strength has progressively grown, along with the Hallyu, that they have forced their way into the world market, transforming a portion of the global audience to look in their way. This, again, does not suggest export-orientedness as a solution but how South Korea was able to do this now is because of the maturity of a phase in their market capitalism that was able to support this.
Lopez’ wording of a dream to “build an ecosystem where filmmakers can consistently access financing” presents to us an ideological symptom of a wider socio-economic problem in the Philippines. I read this as a desperate call. If a need for a constant access to financing is an impulse of any filmmaker, it speaks about the nature of filmmaking in their context: that is, there is no existing finance mechanism in filmmaking. This may be a glimpse of a contemporary issue, but this can also be traced by looking at how the attempts towards the industrialization of filmmaking through market regulation historically were stunted by the factors that have been plaguing the Philippines at large.
We can just look at how Film studios were run during the so-called “First Golden Age.” The conditions for market domination of Filipino films are in place: studios have vertical integration of businesses where some studios own movie theaters, import distribution companies, talent pool, technical and post-production services. Some studios even have political backing. The Philippines, however, has too close a relationship with the United States and, by extension, with Hollywood, that any protectionist measures are thwarted primarily not due to market logic, but rather by political pressure.
There were legislative attempts for a quota since the 1960s, only to be stumped by the threat of economic embargo by the United States, specifically threatening their import of sugar.[26] What passes as a regulation for film imports was presented as an inclusion to the Import Control Law of 1950, citing that a 25% remittance for the total earnings of motion picture exhibition of foreign films shall be taken by the state.[27] This, however, is not present in the law as it stands now. Even celebratory blockage of theaters, such as the Metro Manila Film Festival, has been historically treated with hostility by Hollywood, as late as recent as 2024.[28]
The situation cited above hints at the key as to why foreign investments towards Filipino Film Productions, especially for commercially-leaning ones where Pedring Lopez is concerned, are quite few and close to nil. In the first place, again from a purely market perspective, Foreign investment in Filipino film production does not make sense in a market dominated by Hollywood. Outside of the arthouse circuit, Filipino cinema has yet to prove itself in the world market despite its local blockbusters by exactly proving that it can stand on its own that their own market would prefer them over external competitors. Speculating from the perspective of a world market, the risk of losing the investment is not worth it if the product you are putting your money in does not even have a strong presence on its home market. Even within imperialist contexts, return of investment in film funding is guaranteed within domestic screenings, after all the pioneering national cinema that institutionalized market protectionism is Hollywood. International markets are supplementary.
Even the Philippine film scene’s bid to compete for the Oscars (or any Hollywood validation of note) was made difficult precisely because of the conditions that Hollywood itself set the Philippines in. It may have been just a pat on the back to present the long list for the Best Foreign Feature, but certain conditions are seldom met, so that the short list seems to be predetermined already by the A-list festival circuits, where our commercial films seldom get in. Similarly, the notion of attracting Hollywood funding of Filipino film productions does not make sense from the perspective of Hollywood: why should they fund a film produced from a place where they already dominate the market?
Besides, the things that Lopez has been complaining about, and his solutions, are happening at the same time in the context of Philippine cinema but in a totally different configuration.
A brief history of Philippine Cinema’s Export-Orientation (or a jumbled chronology from 1940s to 1990s)
Social criticism of the Philippine state has long defined its economy as import-dependent and export-oriented, a condition rampant in former colonies that is designed to suit the needs of former colonizers. After our long history of colonization, the United States placed us in a choke hold that brought us to impossible debt conditions that necessitate granting rights for them to exploit our natural and human resources. While our people have faced significant political changes throughout the years, what hasn’t changed is how the different forms of state leadership, whether through the puppet regimes, nationalists, dictators, and liberals, very well accommodated this demand by the imperialist.
On this note, it is clear that the United States is not looking at us equally as a sovereign state. The imperialists are not interested in whatever products we may have, regardless of how talented we think we are. The Philippines is seen as an unlimited pool of cheap resources, with the government almost granting tax-vacation for a planned Special Economic Zone for AI Data Centers and other related infrastructures (which are part of the Pax Silica project) if the news about this deal was not made public.
Even worse is how much neoliberalism was made successful by its execution during the Marcos dictatorship, and continuity during the Corazon Aquino regime and beyond. The Philippine state’s history of imperialist complicity made market deregulation, liberalization, and privatization of public services seem the natural course of things. To that effect, film policies are made to respond to these realities in mind.
During the 1950s-1960s, despite not having market regulation in place, Philippine movies thrived because of the aforementioned vertical integration of businesses. Films, however, are treated as short-term money grabs, even by bigger studios. Consequent staging of strikes of film workers’ unions reflects the kind of vile condition the Filipino film workers were facing because of the neglecting attitude the business owners have towards their workers. This attitude was adapted from their feudal background: treating workers as lowly peasants whose work is treated as a grace given by the landlord. Which is why, there is no stronger case of the semifeudal character of Philippine society than the film industry.
The film business owners’ solution to labor issues is self-sabotage: instead of paying the workers what they are due, they will declare “bankruptcy”, with LVN going to the extremes declaring their whole library amounting only to 1 peso per title, and thus closing the line of business where workers are on strike. In the effect of the business declaring their incapacity to pay what they are due (ultimately blaming the strikes for the incapacity), they are freed from the responsibility.[29] These studios still are in the business of film in some capacity: LVN rented its post production arm and retained its theaters; Premiere productions rented out their equipment to independent producers while establishing their own “independent studio” to continue production activities. What led to the downfall of the so-called First Golden Age was the studio’s unwillingness to treat their workers right.
Still without any regulation, the liberal film market persisted in the most peculiar case of producing soft pornography they called Bomba in the late 1960s. The foundation of the censorship board during the Martial Law did not stop the production of films of questionable themes and exploitative approaches as the Board’s liberal view of censorship (see Guillermo de Vega’s Film and Freedom (1975)) does not pen down strict guidelines of what should be allowed or prohibited. Stories have circulated about Bomba being a really good business venture, attracting fly-by-night producers who are in it for some quick money.
This exploitative nature of film production for quick money and disregarding worker’s welfare made the Philippines an attractive arena for Foreign commissioning so-called “B-grade” genre works from Hollywood and European Producers, and occasionally sending crew to Foreign film productions shooting Vietnam war movies or just plain American propaganda. In the early days of B-movie production in the Philippines during the late 1960s, several filmmakers of prestige pictures (Gerardo de Leon, Lamberto Avellana, Eddie Romero) who have now gone independent after the studios fell, sat on the director’s chair to make such pictures. Cheaper and younger filmmakers, some who are willing to throw away their directing credits, made a more palatable choice for foreign producers as the 1970s and 1980s arrived. It is also worth noting here that this exploitative condition of production was condoned by the Dictator Ferdinand Marcos who himself commissioned and co-wrote a B-grade biopic allowing an American actor, Paul Burke, to depict him.
If we rewind back early in the history of Philippine cinema, this exploitative treatment of Filipinos in film can also be found. Exports of films shot in the Philippines by American film productions are often of the “exotic pacific” type, framing Filipinos as an exotic spectacle, in the works such as Zamboanga and Brides of Sulu. Credit erasure is also a common practice even in the early cinema: the recently unearthed film, Diwata ng Karagatan, now the oldest known surviving feature from the Philippines, has had a difficulty to be tracked down since it was reported across Europe because it was rebranded to a French title, even erasing the names of its producer Jose Nepomuceno and director Carlos Vander Tolosa.
A liberal market for foreign production and co-production does not assure a strengthened film industry. Historically, Filipino Filmmakers who have dealt with the international market during the 20th century often have the accounting confined in closed books and so do not really account for the revenue that the works they produced have earned. It is reported that most of the dealings with international distribution, like how it was with the films of Bobby Suarez and Cirio Santiago, buy the rights as a film territory by territory in fixed sum so the distributors are not required to report revenue to the Filipino filmmakers.
While there are real things that happened: employment happened (albeit under horrible income schemes), production skyrocketed, everyone is productive, even under the dictatorship: a peculiar quality of Marcos’ Martial Law was that it remained overtly liberal for the foreign businesses. Despite this, Cirio Santiago’s partnership with a foreign production, Roger Corman’s New Horizons, which lasted until his death in 2008, did not leave a replicable or transferable model for a sustained international co-production to happen. As it stands, Santiago’s endeavor left within the B-movie market, a niche that only recently has found itself some reputation, but still trapped within a colonial gaze of expectation for the third world as third rate.
For almost half a century, the Philippines has dealt with foreign markets but has never, at large, directly affected the local film industry as a whole. The dictatorship boasted having to host the chaotic production of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now! and other similar works, but that’s it. This permissiveness does not result in any concrete structure where the industry can stand. The film industry collapsed in the late 1990s, with a historical low in 1998, averaging in 50 or so films in subsequent years, in contrast to the industry peak in 1975 at 250. Of late, the FDCP has taken heed of similar motions as Thailand’s Film Tourism, trying to attract foreign productions and giving them incentives on doing so in the Film Location Incentives Program (FLIP), while foreign co-productions are motivated via the International Co-Production Fund (ICOF) and the ASEAN Co-Production Fund (ACOF). As mentioned earlier, this motion has given no particular benefit looping back to the industry nor to the market in Thailand. The schemes have mostly benefited either arthouse productions which are not intended for (probably not interested in) commercial distribution or localized international TV productions such as Survivor (Israel) (which has been given the incentives twice now (in 2020 and 2025). While several factors of course emerged in this collapse, it is clear that our liberal engagement with the foreign market did not help.
A need for market and industry protection, and for the abolition of neoliberalism
I think at this point, it is quite obvious that what I would prescribe as a solution is the enactment of market protectionist measures. The obvious reason why is that I know no one within this bourgeois sphere, that is the Film Industry, can ever accept a radical solution of abolishing the whole economic system because they already know that it is their necks too that are on the line. So let us take a step back and suggest a way that is within their limitations that still keeps their heads connected to their bodies for the years to come.
Years of “letting the market and the industry decide” surely did not bring about any growth and further widened the gap between the film market and the film industry. However, for the past thirty years, certain political conditions seem to align to elevate market and industry protection for movies into legislation but it is always met with frustration. Years of having entertainment industry personalities within the national politics do not even serve for the benefit of the Film industry (as corrupt as the Philippine politicians are, the film industry surely did not enjoy any sort of partisanship from showbiz politicians, despite having an Actor as a President, the industry continued to collapse under his watch). The founding of the Film Development Council of the Philippines initially was directionless and blindly supported any film production that applied for financial support without any sort of goals. Maybe they are just checking boxes in their target matrices? They have, as of late, and weirdly enough, arrived at the same conclusion as the earlier promoters of film and service export naively even without any guarantee that it will eventually feed back into the industry or into the market.
It is not as if ever the actor politicians and the FDCP have finally decided to campaign for market and industry protection that things will go smoothly. There are always enemies of self-determination that have been guarding our moves since the dawn of the republic. The progressives have identified them as the three plagues, all of which have a stake in keeping the market and the industry as they are right now: imperialism, bureaucrat-capitalism, and feudalism.
Against Imperialism, Bureaucrat-Capitalism, and Feudalism
These three plagues do not exist separately; they are a complex unit that implements one aspect of one plague and one of the other whenever they see fit. They are well represented by the Filipino ruling classes along with their petitbourgeois simps and allies.
I have outlined earlier about the United States’ vested interest in keeping the Philippines as their unlimited source of capital accumulation. In our cinemas, they have little to no interest in our viewing experience during the celluloid era that they export to us used prints of their movies on showing weeks. This comes little to no cost to them: they have already broken-even in their homeland, our admission is merely exploitable profit.
Since the collapse of the film industry in the 2000s, as standalone theaters closed down one by one, the deciding power of shopping malls as to what would be worth screening in the cinemas inclined at a rapid rate. Since they are private institutions, they are left minding their own regulation including ban on certain movies or choosing films they can exclusively screen. The problem with this model is that Cinema is not even their primary business and so they do not place great care for their own market nor do they particularly care about whether or not the local film industry has any new interesting works to come. The biggest one, SM, who holds a 60% market share at 393 screens,[30] puts their cinema line under “SM Prime” which reported annual revenue that includes events ticket sales and other amusement. Years after the pandemic, they reportedly increased their income fundamentally, even reaching roughly 7 billion pesos just in the first half of 2025 (we need to take note that in 2024, the 9-month report for SM Prime is already at 8 billion pesos).[31] Now, it must be noted, again, that they do not just count cinema in this, but they have always broken down which films drive their revenue as a strategy for what to support for the upcoming years.
SM’s own reports reveal that much of their revenue drivers are Hollywood movies. But does this mean that the Filipino audience desires Hollywood? I would argue the other way: this desire for Hollywood is as much a product of market conditioning that is as a whole, a colonial legacy. I have noted elsewhere that it will be hard to compete against a very aggressive player that promotes their own products half a year or even a year ahead of its release. In this era of market liberalization, the thought that shopping malls, which generally are real estate businesses, decide for the film market leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. They even out-lawed the only legislation on film incentive imposed by the Film Development Council of the Philippines, citing that routing the Amusement Taxes towards motivating the Film Industry was unconstitutional.[32] Leaving the decision of the whole industry and market in the hands of few people who do not care is exactly the gap that Hollywood further exploited in the country.
This development in Bureaucrat Capitalism, founded in Feudalism, abets Imperialism. The ideology that follows it gives off the very semifeudal and semicolonial character of this society. A widespread defeatism following this has spread even among filmmakers: thinking that globalization is a natural course of things; or rather since historically cinema is not indigenous to the Philippines, that we must abide by the very globalist agenda which benefits one side of the world and has yet to prove any sort of benefit to us. This is what’s beneath Lopez’ suggestion, but he was never alone in this sentiment. This is also what’s beneath Mikhail Red’s idea of needing a “buffer” from external sources,[33] and even further, what’s beneath Patrick Campos’ theorization of the End of National Cinema.
These ideologies, however, lead us to explore the idea of a national cinema as a failed project that needs a correction. This has its own burden: aligning any sort of nationalist project gets scrutinized by a globalist lens, and that this globalist lens is centered in the United States, a nation that gave nationalism a bad name. Contradictorily, the Globalist Agenda, amongst other criticisms, is fundamentally rooted within the gains of United States’ imperialism. Which is why any attempts among former colonies for autonomy, for economic protectionism, have historically been violently halted by the United States – from violent coups staged by the CIA in small socialist countries to the communist massacre in Indonesia. Vincent Bevins, in his book detailing the history of communist massacre in Indonesia, suggested a more accurate word to capture this deployment of global capitalism: Americanization.[34]
Export-facing agenda and ideologies often look towards America as their goal: some funding from Amazon or Netflix, a distribution deal in the American territories, an awards nomination in the Oscars. Contrary to what the ideologues believe, this does not broaden the playing field, this further narrows it by pinning yourself against other hopefuls from other nations who similarly have given up on their respective national cinema. This inevitably would result in cartel-like structures that expand bureaucratic partisanship across continents just to ensure the success of their pet projects.[35] This may have reflected a similar organization of a narrow circle locally that Lopez complains about a gatekeeping mechanism that validates who gets to be a filmmaker or not.
In a similar manner, globalization deployed within the national territories through the complicity of Bureaucrat capitalists and feudal compradors cater almost exclusively to Hollywood products. Recent development of Hollywood distributors carrying Filipino titles does not even help with the globalizing Filipino films: Columbia Pictures, an international distribution company, for example, picked up two titles from GMA Films but only to distribute them locally, something any local distributor could have done.[36] Warner Bros. had a similar deal with Mentorque Productions.[37] This means that this distribution deal does not expand the reach of the films but cashes in more than the same but in a more intrusive manner: Hollywood has found a way into a market controlled condition like the Metro Manila Film Festival by acquiring competing titles instead of forcing their way into the market.
There is more to the ideological and practical aspects of Americanization, as this is supported by the real presence of American authority and military within the Philippine soil.
Currently, there are 9 military sites dedicated to the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the United States and the Philippines. This agreement coincides with the still-effective military agreements such as the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the General Security of Military Information Agreement. What these ensure, of course, is the protection of vested interest in the Philippines which they rely on with cheap labor for their accelerated manufacturing of semiconductors and other minerals relevant to their growing need for information and communications technology. The Philippines also continually caters to American clientele for the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Semiconductors, BPO, and defense remain the three markets in the Philippines where the United States has very strategic influence.
This presence is overwhelming. The imperialist claws of the United States have pierced deep into our land that the initial response is to point fingers at each other for not doing enough. This might be the reason why the impulse of the bourgeois, if given a chance to do a film as a statement, is to express a certain defeatism that is expressive of their incapacity to imagine a future away from their colonial masters. Their logical course, then, is to blame “Filipinos” as the source of the downfall of Filipinos: this is despite that, historically, it is the Filipino mass audience – the so-called bakya audience – of the mid-20th century that kept Philippine cinema afloat and sustainable enough to be called a “national pastime.” Instead of the bourgeoisie pointing at the “Filipino audience” for the supposed fall of the film industry, maybe they should look at what the decisions of their fellow bourgeois and their ruling class bosses have done in the economy. Further liberalization of the market led to stronger push by the private sector to decide on public policies that made wages only nominally increase to answer an aggressively rising cost of living. This naturally has an effect on movie going, which is seen not as an essential activity to be economically prioritized by a minimum wage earner.
The centralization of movie-going to shopping malls further in the early 21st century has not helped the situation. As private spaces located within prime real estate, they unabashedly set horrible pricing ranges that effectively alienates movie-going to the average Filipino. This set an even wider divide among classes whose former pastime can no longer be enjoyed without having to pass the ridiculous mortgage of the semifeudal landlords.
But the suggestion still stands: if we just study our neighbors who are successful in their national cinemas who treat their products definitely not as export commodities, but cultural artifacts of national importance, protecting them against the barrage of imperialism is a must. What makes this challenging for the Philippines is the vested interest of the ruling classes for the success of imperialism and that enacting market protectionism for cinema will force them to review every neoliberal policy in place. What is clear, then, for any sort of meaningful change to happen, definitely pointing fingers at your potential audience won’t cut it. Recent statements saying that the prices of admission are not an issue just because recent blockbusters are getting flocked at does not address the root cause of things: this audience is less organic than you think it is and has long been a product of the programming of the urban population vulnerable to semicolonial PR. Our long battle against imperialism tells us that merely dealing with policy is not enough: to even pass a meaningful policy is to fight tooth and nail against comprador lobbyists in the legislative houses. The condition that would make market regulation in favor of Filipino movies acceptable necessitates the abolition of all the neoliberal policies in place and the eradication of the ruling classes that benefit from them.
No war but class war.
[1] https://mbrellafilms.com/insights/thailand-film-office-film-production-statistics/
[2] https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/social-and-lifestyle/793765/the-force-is-strong-with-this-one
[3] http://www.thaiworldview.com/tv/cinema2.htm
[4] https://umoonproductions.com/history-of-the-thai-film-industry/
[5] Expósito-Barea, Maria Milagros and Miguel Ángel Pérez-Gómez. , “Defining New Thai Cinema through the Filmographies of Nonzee Nimibutr, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Wisit Sasanatieng,” Journal of Film and Video 76, no. 1 (2024): 32-43, doi:10.5406/19346018.76.1.04.
[6] https://seasia.co/2024/12/17/how-thailand-makes-millions-for-its-film-industry-the-prospect-and-global-phenomenon
[7] https://www.screendaily.com/features/thailands-film-industry-buoyed-by-local-hits-and-new-government-backed-fund/5204973.article
[8] https://www.screendaily.com/news/how-to-make-millions-before-grandma-dies-leads-2024-thai-box-office-exclusive/5192758.article
[9] https://www.screendaily.com/features/thailands-film-industry-buoyed-by-local-hits-and-new-government-backed-fund/5204973.article
[10] Ada Apa dengan Cinta? and Arisan! reportedly reached the 2 million admissions sold, one of its kind in the 2000s when Hollywood and other foreign features only sell at a 1 million admissions on average. Ariel Heryanto. “Popular Culture for a New Southeast Asian Studies?” in The Historical Construction of Southeast Asian Studies. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. (2013). 226
Joni’s Promise however, sold at 610,000 domestically by the self report of its director, Joko Anwar which by itself already an achievement in a reviving market. Joni’s Promise was also screened commercially in Malaysia and Singapore.
[11] https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/indonesia-passes-strict-new-film-law-1.860012
[12] https://www.kompas.id/artikel/en-meninjau-kembali-larangan-dubbing-film-di-indonesia
[13] https://bplawyers.co.id/2025/12/19/dugaan-monopoli-industri-film-regulasi-dampaknya-terhadap-persaingan-usaha/
[14] https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-local-films-and-long-theatrical-windows-have-fuelled-indonesias-post-covid-box-office-boom/5208672.article
[15] Yohanes Lucky Tindaon, and Tria Apriliatna, S.E., M.Si. 2026. “Export Competitiveness of the Indonesian Film Industry in International Trade: Evidence from RCA and RSCA Indices (2015–2024)”. International Journal Of Management And Economics Invention 12 (6):5698-5704. doi:10.47191/ijmei/v12i6.04.
[16] https://www.indonesia-investments.com/id/news/todays-headlines/opening-indonesia-s-film-industry-to-foreign-investment/item6859
[17] https://jakartaglobe.id/features/cgv-blitz-rebrands-changes-name-cgv-cinemas
[18] Carolyn H. Kim, Comment, Building the Korean Film Industry’s Competitiveness: Abolish the Screen Quota
and Subsidize the Film Industry, 9 Pac. Rim L & Pol’y J. 353 (2000)
[19] https://archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/copywood-no-longer
[20] Jimmyn Parc, “A Retrospective on the Korean Film Policies: Return of the Jedi” (working paper, European Centre for International Political Economy, Brussels, October 2014), https://ecipe.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Parc_KoreanFilmPolicies102014.pdf.
[21] https://www.privacyshield.gov/ps/article?id=Korea-Entertainment-and-Media-Film
[22] Parc, Jimmyn. 2021. “Business Integration and Its Impact on Film Industry: The Case of Korean Film Policies from the 1960s until the Present.” Business History 63 (5): 850–67. doi:10.1080/00076791.2019.1676234.
[23] https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10423031
[24] https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250218007900315
[25] https://celluloidjunkie.com/wire/jung-kook-i-am-still-achieves-15-7m-worldwide-box-office-gross/
[26] Nick Deocampo, Film: American Influences on Philippine Cinema,Mandaluyon: Anvil. (2011). 326
[27] Nick Deocampo, Film: American Influences on Philippine Cinema. 464-465.
[28] https://mb.com.ph/2024/12/24/hollywood-slams-mmff-cites-trade-barriers
[29] https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1970/sep1970/gr_23495_1970.html
[30] https://www.sminvestments.com/press_release/sm-cinema-brings-world-class-entertainment-closer-to-provincial-areas/
[31] https://mb.com.ph/2025/08/04/sm-prime-hits-record-high-profit-on-strong-consumer-spending-tourism-boost
[32] https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2020/nov2020/gr_203754_2020.html
[33] https://asianmoviepulse.com/2023/03/interview-with-mikhail-red-you-are-always-as-good-as-your-last-film/
[34] Vincent Bevins. The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. New York: Public Affairs. (2020) 239-240.
[35] https://filmindustrywatch.org/cannes-2025-strikes-again/
[36] https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/showbiz/chikaminute/919396/columbia-pictures-to-distribute-gma-pictures-green-bones-kmjs-gabi-ng-lagim-the-movie/story/
[37] https://www.pep.ph/news/local/177447/warner-bros-piolo-pascual-mallari-a755-20231201
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