I recently watched “Hand of God” (starring Ruru Madrid, Iza Calzado, Ronnie Lazaro) in a cinema. The film is one of the entries for this year’s Cinemalaya Film Festival, which opened on the second week of the screening of the latest installment in Marvel’s “Spider-Man” film franchise. Much to the disappointment of local filmmakers, the foreign flick has earned more in the past weeks than the local festival entries.

And a thought came into my mind: Perhaps ‘indie’ filmmaking is a remnant of the past—not the filmmaking itself, but the way we categorize it. It is that relative you first branded the “cool tito” at a family reunion, only to discover after several reunions that, well, he never evolved into the more responsible adult uncle.

Don’t get me wrong. I love films that are branded “indie,” or those produced by the not-yet-so-established film houses. I love them because they are usually the more creative films, with more nuanced stories, more varied themes, and generally more thought-provoking. But it can be argued that there have also been so-called mainstream films that have done the same. (At the top of my mind is “Muro Ami,” which was one of the first local films I saw when I was in elementary school.)

Still, the distinction—which goes beyond its original meaning that distinguishes how a film was produced—persists, and I believe that this divide between what is mainstream and what is indie is not doing the overall local film industry a service.

The distinction between mainstream and indie is a disease sucking the life out of what is otherwise a thriving Filipino film culture.

This may sound harsh, but allow me to explain.

The Philippine indie scene started in the late 1970s, with “Mababangong Bangungot” (1977) becoming the first-ever independently produced film. Directed by now-National Artist Kidlat Tahimik, this film showed aspiring Filipino filmmakers that it is possible to produce a film without a big studio budget.

In the decades that followed, indie evolved to encompass not just how a film is produced but an entire genre or film type. From how it looks, how it feels, and the type of actors it employed, Filipino indie films screamed artistic and aesthetic—unlike their more commercial counterparts, which were often viewed as “sellouts” by those who preferred their cinema with a little more Jean-Luc Godard.

For a time, this served the Philippine film industry well. Artistic expression reigned supreme in the indie scene. It also served as a battleground for putting forward gender-related themes and other social issues mainstream movies dare not touch for fear of being censored. On top of that, indie did not necessarily have to translate to something that makes money—or at least it seemed to be the case.

This is where, I think, one of the problems comes in. The question is: Why shouldn’t it? To put it simply: Why can’t indie be mainstream?

Sadly, indie in the Philippines has always had this connotation that it is not for the general public. This does not mean that indie filmmakers have deliberately cultivated that image. But neither have they done much to dispel it. Similarly, what has stopped major production companies from going indie, in terms of subject choice, treatment, and overall artistic value in the production of their films?

The answer is the same for both sides: They have misjudged the general Filipino moviegoing public.

Mainstream filmmakers have long regurgitated the same formulas, assuming that these are what Filipino moviegoers want. That may have been true when moviegoing was the primary way Filipinos consumed films. But streaming has since exposed audiences to a much wider range of stories, styles, and filmmakers. On the flip side, those in the indie scene tended to have a not-so-inviting vibe, as if suggesting that their films cannot be understood by the regular Filipino film viewer (i.e., you have to be a connoisseur of sorts and frequent the film festivals or the hidden-but-not-so-hidden venues where these titles are usually screened).

To be fair, movie houses (ergo, malls) have also played a part in this unnecessary divide. There are, however, a number of theaters that have started becoming more open to screening all kinds of Filipino films.

Still, the point remains. The terms mainstream and indie are no longer relevant. As US filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun once put it, indie film is “a meaningless, outmoded term”. The same can and should be said about it in the Philippines.

Again, don’t get me wrong. There should be film production companies besides those of the major media entities. But the films the former make can and should be marketed as mainstream. They should be scheduled for screening not just during film festivals, but all-year-round. Similarly, those called mainstream productions should have the level of storytelling and the artistic quality typically associated with independent titles.

If the creativity typically associated with indie filmmaking takes hold in mainstream cinema, then the Filipino viewer will be served better content not just during the weeks of indie film festivals. Isn’t that a good thing for everyone?

And maybe then the local films can earn as much as foreign superhero flicks.