Free the artist in Jeffrey Jeturian

While internationally acclaimed filmmaker 2009 Palm d’Or Best Director at the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival Brillante Mendoza’s documentary film “Ayos Pare Ko,” one of the twenty masterpieces in the ABS-CBN News Channel’s omnibus docu “Ambisyon,” was lifted of an X-rating by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, equally world renowned director Jeffrey Jeturian’s masterpiece, “Ganito Tayo Noon, Paano Tayo Bukas?” has retained its unfit for public exhibition classification.

According to MTRCB chair Ma. Consoliza Laguardia, Jeturian’s film is malicious and undermines the faith of the people in the government.

“Ganito Tayo Noon, Paano Tayo Bukas?” is a testament of Jeturian’s sharp perception of socio-political events and how these processes affect not only his economic state of things but those of the many underprivileged as well.

To begin with, Jeturian is a Filipino, an artist worth his salt, a cultural worker and a fellow citizen who would want tackle any topic under the sun provided he works within the premise of legal framework.

He knows where he is coming from and as a thinking person and a professional, he is familiar with laws concerning his being a filmmaker, both as an artisan and a producer.

He, too, knows that nobody can quantify arts as they are, free flowing, subjectifying objects and objectifying subjects, personal and public as long as he is a law abiding person.

So how can Laguardia’s findings be so absolute when malice is still so hard to prove?

The least that MRTCB do is slap Jeturian a case to at least prove its point and not necessarily burden the filmmaker with an X rating.

When the project was presented to Jeffrey last year, he had to choose a particular topic to discuss on and he chose economy “because economy encompasses a lot of things in this society.”

Stage actor and prolific playwright Rody Vera was commissioned by Jeffrey to write the script and they agreed on the form and contents of the episode.

It tells of a pedestrian who walks along the road where newsboys peddle their wares and he buys one newspaper. Along the way, he gets on to a jeepney, reads the paper and gets to the page where a government ad was placed proclaiming the economic gains so called of the current administration.

While he is reading the paper, he is exposed to the ills of society, to the beggars, to the street children who sell practically anything to survive and a lot of economic sore eyes.

The visual ends with the pedestrian getting off the ride and stepping on a shit.

All he does is wipe the shit with the page of the newspaper proclaiming false claims of the government.

All in all, the video is an independently produced one notwithstanding its being financed by ABS-CBN News Channel.

Each filmmaker is given freedom to tackle their subject with clarity and spontaneity so Jeturian has no qualms about being censured only being censored by the regime’s regulatory board.

“Since the start, I was ready MTRCB was to chop my film into pieces because most of the ones sitting there are GMA’s appointees,” said Jeturian without hesitation.

It’s an artist’s right to free expression guaranteed by the premier law of the land so why not give Jeturian his free spirit to do whatever he wants to say and expound as long as he is aware of his rights and responsibilities as a Filipino.

Anyway, we still have the time to analyze and prove Jeturian’s point when “Ambisyon,” a compendium of twenty works of leading young Filipino filmmakers on various subjects on April 5, 2010 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.