Brillante Mendoza puts up 'Moro' for streaming for bigger reach

MANILA, Philippines — Award-winning filmmaker Brillante Mendoza admitted putting up his latest film "Moro" on a streaming platform so that audiences would be able to see it at an affordable price.

"Moro" is began streaming on Netflix last July 19, but prior to that the film held a screening for his actors led by Piolo Pascual at the Victoria Sports Tower Cinema in Quezon City.

"While I contemplated of screening this movie in cinemas, I opted to have it streamed on Netflix so that a lot of viewers can watch it at a very affordable price, when compared to a cinema ticket," the director revealed.

He added opting for a streaming platform claiming the theater reception after the most recent Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) wasn't that good.

This despite the 10 competing films of MMFF 2023 managing to collectively bring in P1.069 billion, beating the previous record held by the 2018 edition, a feat mostly attributed to the Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera movie "Rewind" — currently the highest-grossing Filipino film of all time. 

"Besides, distribution and promotion is expensive if you take into consideration the short time of the theater run," Mendoza also said.

He described "Moro" as another side of the Mamasapano story, based on a real story of a mother in Mindanao during the SAF 44 incident, chiming in "The situation is always the truth."

"The challenge, when working with big name actors, is their work schedules. Syncing all their available dates is a juggler's act," Mendoza said about the production. "While shooting, we had a dialogue coach for accuracy in saying the lines, like intonation and pronunciation."

Mendoza received the Golden Leopard at the 2005 Locarno Film Festival for his feature debut "Masahista" and was the first Filipino director to win Best Director at Cannes with 2009's "Kinatay."

In 2014, he was honored with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Letters from France. In 2021 his film "Gensan Punch" received the Jiseok Award at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea.

Other notable works of his include 2016's "Ma Rosa" and 2019's "Mindanao."

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