The Philippines and its film industry

Ok, here's a case of cultural isolation which I think is very strange. People in the West are now getting more aware that India is the most prolific industry in the world, but how many people know that the Philippines produce more feature films annually than the majority of countries in our part of the world?
I'm not sure exactly where they fit in on the world stage, but they are certainly among the top10 or even top5 most prolific film industries in the world (I'm told that in the 1970s they were 3rd after India and the USA). I am a person who watches more cinema than most and do you know how many films from the Philippines I've seen? Answer: One.
The film I saw was a big hit in the Philippines (it was apparently no.1 at the box office there beating many American films) and while very low budget, it is a really great film. It dealt with homosexuality which is an all together different topic in the Philippines than it is here. And contrary to what you might think, it is us who have the much more conservative attitude. The story is that of Maxi, a 12-year old gay boy who is brought up by his father and brothers and falls in love with an adult man - an idealistic policeman (and according to the Warsaw Film Festival catalogue idealistic policemen are much more rare in the Philippines than 12 year old gay boys). Anyway, the English title is The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, if you have the chance (which you probably won't ;-P ) then check it out! Here's a trailer I found on youtube:


We had a Q&A with the director after the film and some of the things he said were fascinating (well at least for me - this is the first bit of Philippine culture that I've ever come across).

So the thing is that the Philippines like Poland are a very Catholic country - so we found it quite odd that homosexuality is so much more in the open there than here. The director told us that perhaps it is to do with the traditions that were in place in the Philippines before christianity came there. Apparently shamans would usually be gay because it was believed that somebody who has both male and female "particles" is closer to God.
Another thing which I found weird and amusing is that unlike in Poland it's the lower classes that are tolerant about homosexuality, most of the intolerance is in the upper classes.
When asked about how it is that boys declare their orientation in the Philippines so early he said he doesn't know, but that he thinks it's because the society in general is more open about it.

Something else that the director told us which I thought was great was about the showing of his film at the Berlin festival where his film was shown in the children's section. He thought the children would find it quite boring and that there would be a lot of walkouts, but on the contrary - it was very well received. He did however get verbally attacked by a woman who was offended that such a film would be shown to children, so he asked the children if they felt shocked or offended by the film and the children said no and that they thought the film was very cool :D
Just to clarify - the film doesn't actually have any sex in it. There is a sort of strange romance between the boy and the policeman, but it's not physical.

On the making of the film, the director told us that the boy who played Maxi was actually straight. He did audition lots of gay boys (there is apparently a whole gang of queens on his street where he shot the film :) ), but apparently they all exaggerated it too much, lol. The boy he chose really was excellent by the way :)