Director Erik Matti divulged into the struggles of filmmakers in the Philippines, in response to discussions pointing to "bad filmmaking" as the reason for the public's lack of support for local movies. Matti took to Facebook to apprise "quick and thoughtless" people on social media that film makers face many uncertainties, such as how they can “recoup the investment on the film through box office”. ERIK MATTI “When you don’t know whether the rest of the country will see your movie playing in the cinemas near them because every 300 million dollar Hollywood movie is occupying the screens, producers would rather make movies that manage their financial risks,” he wrote. “Producers would opt to do a movie with a conservative budget in the hopes that with a good story even with just a few cinemas and with the big Hollywood film in 8 other screens beside their own, he can still hopefully recoup the investment to produce the next film,” Matti continued. The award-winning director also likened film producing to “playing in the casinos,” saying that producers, despite the unpredictability of their return of investment will still “go all in” with the hopes that their movie will “make it at the box office.” “In fact film producing might be one of the few business models where prayers play a big role in its success,” he said. Matti said it’s difficult for rproducers to risk spending big on a movie when they are not assured if their film will stay long enough in theaters for people to see it, or if it’s even played in cinemas at all. The renowned Filipino director also said that filmmakers “want to do bigger things too”, however financial constraints hinders them to do so. “We want a meet cute in the heart of Edsa traffic with 3000 onlookers. We want an MRT train exploding in front of Ortigas while an Edsa rally is simultaneously happening. But what can we do when we can only afford a bench in an empty park to manage our financial investment?” Matti concluded by saying that filmmakers will always strive to create movies and stories for the Filipino audience “no matter how unpredictable the business structure of film producing” is in the country. “We love telling stories. But we can only make good looking well made worth everyone’s buck movies only if it’s sustainable. Give us the same privileges as a Hollywood tentpole movie and we’ll give you a big budget epic movie worth your money. Right now, it’s not looking like that at all,” he said. He then urged cinema owners to give Filipino films a chance to be seen by the entire country.