Last night, Gawad Urian awarded the Pinakamahusay na Pangunahing Aktress (Best Actress) to Nadine Lustre for her performance in their 2018 movie “Never Not Love You” opposite James Reid. She beat nine (9) other amazing actress including Iyah Mina who already won Best Actress in Cinema One Original Awards and Anne Curtis who’s nominated for 2 movies (Buybust and Sid and Aya). I was in agreement that she will definitely get this given her winning performance in that film. Nadine Lustre already won Best Performance from Young Critics Circle and the 2018 FAMAS Best Actress.
While today’s discussion of Award Giving bodies focuses on its own credibility and controversy, it is important to note that there are indeed legitimate wins and reliable nods for our local movie performers and film makers. New generation of performers are now being emerged and recognized in time.
Anne Curtis (BuyBust) and Christian Bables Signal Rock)
Sarah Geronimo shared the PMPC Best Actress for Miss Granny with Kathryn Bernardo (Hows of Us)
I know that it is quite a challenging years for the movie industry as moviegoers started to recognize inflation as to ticket prices, not to mention the effortless shift of attention as they slowly moving to in-demand digital contents, including myself.
For Nadine, her Gawad Urian trophy is indeed a seal of approval that she indeed arrived in the excellent actress category, marking her mark as one to look forward in the years to come. Her win last night made me want to discuss who is now more credible award giving bodies today.
For the past years of reviewing local movies, I would say that it is unfortunate that moviegoers tend to abandon movie reviews and rely only on strong promotional activities. While I recognize the effort to market a film, movie review readers disappear little by little. It is with high hopes that more bloggers will review movies (reliably) to benefit the paying audience. I know it is expensive haha but for me there is more freedom in writing a movie review if it is not influenced by other factors such as red carpet invites by producers or block screenings sponsored by fans. While I have enjoyed all these, lately I prefer my own schedule and money to appreciate one film.
Gawad Urian of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino or MPP, probably the accurate version of the New York Film Critics Circle and is somewhat consistent in giving accolades to deserving winners in the past decades, making it more the most reliable award giving body today followed by Young Critics Circle (YCC). YCC on the other hand is another independent body, a group where I mostly trusted in the last 10 years as well. They are the only award giving body that gives only one award for performance regardless of inclusion and gender. Which is a growing concern for me since there could be many determining factor to consider if you are performing as ensemble, as an actor, supporting or lead role). I think they must break that category. FAMAS on the other hand used to be the source of reliance for many because the body with so much controversies in the early 80s. There were multiple attempts to restructure FAMAS to form a legitimate panel particularly in early 2000s but that didn’t justify their questionable bold moves in awarding previous categories. Gladly, FAMAS finally saw the light in 2017. They started rebranding the group to finally cater this generation, and considering the innovation film-making. Last year’s selection gave me hope that it change is possible.
Some of the prestigious award giving bodies can also be considered such as Catholic Mass Media Awards (though they stopped), Pasado, Tanglaw, Luna Awards of Film Academy of the Philippines, Enpress, Star, Metro Manila Film Festival, Manila Film Festival and Society of Philippine Entertainment Editors (SPEEd). To date, their existence and prestige lies on the member of their panel of judges, criteria and subjectivity. I will not go further to their controversies because it will always be a debatable topic.
For other award giving bodies, it is a timely check to reconsider selection, to look for excellence, and avoid biases. For Gawad Urian to recognize Nadine Lustre as her generation’s Best Actress, it matters because it will now dismiss her critics and non-believers who question her, malign her, sabotage her. Because today, the authority made a decision. And the decision is that, she arrived.
I made a video by the way of the BEST FILMS of 2019. Hope you’ll watch and subscribe!
Very well said Sir Rod.. Thank you…