The Choices: Criteria and Quality
The MPP, like the Luna Awards of the Film Academy of the Philippines, has criteria in judging the winners of the Gawad Urian.
The Gawad Urian is arguably the most prestigious film award-giving body in the Philippines if the number of scandals and dubious choices are taken in account. For the thirty years that the MPP has existed, it has not been tainted with any accusations of vote buying or scandals that tainted all of its counterparts in the Philippines. This distinction made the Gawad Urian a highly coveted award in the Philippine film industry that is only given to the most deserved winners. If a person wins the Gawad Urian, the person is held in high regard and in clean victory.
The Gawad Urian is also famously known for its curious choices over the hugely popular choices in the Philippine film awards season. For example, in 2005, Dennis Trillo won all of the awards for Best Performance by an Actor in his landmark portrayal in the Japanese occupation drama Aishite Imasu 1941: Mahal Kita but lost out the Gawad Urian to Wendell Ramos for his portrayal in Sabel. In 1999, the "Best Picture of 1998" and the most awarded Filipino film of all time, Jose Rizal of GMA Films, lost to Bata, Bata, Paano Ka Ginawa and won only 6 Gawad Urians. Before the Gawad Urian, Jose Rizal won at least 10 awards from each of the award giving bodies in the Philippines.
The awards is also known for its infamous ties. At a time when the Filipino award-giving bodies were adamant about awarding ties after the FAMAS rock-up in 1972, the Gawad Urian has given ties in the Best Picture category (3 ties), Best Screenplay category (1), Best Actress category (6) and Best Supporting Actress category (2), a dozen ties all in all.
Gawad Urian is also known for bolstering the awards radar of several lesser-known films produced by little-known and small independent production companies by awarding them with highly-deserved awards that would have been otherwise looked over by the other award-giving bodies. For example, in 2004, Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino, a landmark Filipino drama, was awarded Pinakamahusay na Pelikula (Best Picture) by Gawad Urian, while it did not receive a single nomination from any award-giving body that year.
In 2006, the Gawad Urian became the first award-giving body in the Philippine to welcome digital films into competition. Its nominees were swamped with achievement from digital films that year, which prompted the other award-giving bodies to include digital films in its roster of nominations the next year.
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Famous quotes containing the words criteria and/or quality:
“Every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation.... The domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs. They equate with one another. Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present, too. Everything ideological possesses semiotic value.”
—V.N. (Valintin Nikolaevic)
“The past is interesting not only for the beauty which the artists for whom it was the present were able to extract from it, but also as past, for its historical value. The same goes for the present. The pleasure which we derive from the representation of the present is due not only to the beauty in which it may be clothed, but also from its essential quality of being present.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)