I always hope to find some gems in the annual Cinemalaya independent film festival. It's awesome to see the support behind this project. Kudos to the festival being more organized and adding venues like Greenbelt 3. However if there's one area, they have to improve on, it's on their trailers.

I had a chance to watch all of the trailers today and I found myself disappointed. Most of them were made with too much attachment to the material that it didn't answer the question, "why would someone want to watch this?" A lot of the times, people who are not involved with the movie are asked to edit the trailer because they are able to see it from an objective distance. Without objectivity, there is a big chance to totally miss the point.  Being an an advertiser, I see Cinemalaya trailers as commercials with the daunting task of enticing people to to travel all the way to the CCP, to shell out P150 (to P5000 for a festival pass) to sit through a potentially crappy (potentially brilliant) film. They have to make that choice just a little bit easier for people.

Here are some of the trailers I found intriguing - on my list of things to catch.

Teoriya
A story about a young man in search of his father's remains. It looks well made and it
doesn't seem to have that overly dramatic plot that usually turns out bad. 

Isda: The Fable of the Fish
We hear about weird freakish things happening all the time. Why not make a movie out of it? 
I want to see how this fable ends. 

Busong
It's a look into the Palawan belief of instant karma. I'm just a sucker for films
that make a subject of culturally remote Filipino ethnic groups.
Plus, it's Alessandra de Rossi- she's awesome!

Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (The Dance of Two Left Feet)
It's beautifully shot and the scoring has promise. 

Ang Babae sa Septic Tank
Chris Martinez, Marlon Rivera, and Eugene Domingo! Talk about star power. 
It's rare to find comedies in a festival like this and this one is a parody of the making of 
indie films in the Philippines. How apt. Definitely, a must see for me. 

To view more trailers, go to the Cinemalaya website. 
For the complete schedules in CCP and in Greenbelt, click here.