CINEPHILES have collected some of the best critics and emerging critics of Philippine cinema; film authorities, film bloggers, film programmers; establish filmmakers, screenwriters, and technicians; emerging filmmakers, screenwriters, and technicians; famous actors and actresses, and the remaining deeply devoted cineastes who will die for the love of films. All of them have somewhat approximated t
he local film culture of not just Manila (since we have members all over the globe) but also current milieu of Filipino cinephilia, what Doug Cummings describe in his blog FILM JOURNEY four years ago as non-existent. From time to time, some people walk out and some joined, and now with 498 members (active and inactive), the group has transformed itself from a harmless talk-a-talk film forum into an independent body giving, if not unsolicited, straight-from-heart, no-wooshy-hooey, even blunt commentary on local and international films which, to some people confided in me, have influenced outsider's point-of-view in films. Some have suggested the idea of making the group an official CRITICS' GROUP, an update of the now-aged Young Critics' Circle. But most of the CINEPHILES! chose not to muddle inside the complex world of the arts, celebrity gossips and the age-old onion-skinned attitude of the local film community to film criticism. They instead remained as what they are: a Facebook-based, stratified, eclectic, pluralist, informal and radical group nurturing and "destroying" each other, at their best intentions, via conversations, debates, and even gay-lingo crossfires about films and film-related gossips. Occasional meet-ups were organized during film events such as festival and film screenings. Acquaintances became friendship and friendship became groupies. Somehow the trajectory of the group, as a result of pain-staking moderation and observance, aims towards the support of the local film industry, triumphantly championing independent and, occasionally, some good commercially released films of the studios. also converges towards the goal of reintroducing the younger Filipino audience to the classics of Philippine Cinema and old canonical films of other foreign countries, mostly European countries and the US. Film members also arrived at a commotion that there is a need to establish and nurture a Filipino audience who watches and appreciates Filipino films. have also received negative feedbacks and one of which is the air of elitism around it. Still in its infancy, the group grapples at establishing the available and most appropriate issues of the moment. I have never insisted the group to stop talking art films, avant-garde and exploitation films, nor did I encourage them to promote them. Each person has his own film experiences, and being a group itself, it is natural for someone to share these fleeting and sometimes, unforgettable moments with cinema.
