| Rights | |
| Director: | see below |
| Runtime: | 20 minutes |
| Country: | Philippines |
Rights (also known as Rights Volume I) is a 2007 Filipino short anthology documentary film produced by the collectives Southern Tagalog Exposure and the Free Jonas Burgos Movement. A compilation of independently produced public service announcements, the film is themed around the "present human rights situation in the Philippines".[1] Filmmakers Sunshine Matutina and Kiri Dalena made the film to bring attention to the enforced disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos in April 2007, a case which has remained unsolved as of 2023.[2]
In September 2007, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) gave the film a controversial "X" rating for "undermin[ing] the faith and confidence of the government", which prompted criticisms of censorship against the board; the rating was lowered to R-13 a week later.
Final list of films by 2008:
The Rights project was begun by filmmakers Anna Isabelle "Sunshine" Matutina and Kiri Dalena after activist Jonas Burgos was abducted on April 28, 2007.[3] Matutina thought of creating a film that would bring attention to Burgos' disappearance and shared the idea with Dalena.[3] It was then decided that the film would take the form of a compilation of public service announcements made by various independent filmmakers so that they would "commit pro bono" in creating shorts for the project.[3]
An early version of Rights which then consisted of nine films was released on DVD in August 2007.[3] By next month, the filmmakers met with the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative (IFC), organizers of the film festival Indie Sine at Robinson's Galleria, to arrange for a screening of the film at the festival on September 21, 2007, to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the declaration of martial law in the country.[3]
Before the film could be screened at Indie Sine, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) gave the film an "X" rating on September 18, a classification which effectively prohibits any film from being screened due to local theaters having no permission to exhibit X-rated films.[3] [4] The three board members who gave the rating reasoned that the film is "one-sided and undermines the faith and confidence of the government and duly constituted authorities".[3] [4] All 13 directors of the short films compiled in Rights jointly criticized the decision as curtailing their freedom of expression, while film director Carlitos Siguion-Reyna (son of former MTRCB chairwoman Armida Siguion-Reyna) condemned the rating as "simply censorship".[1]
After the filmmakers appealed the rating, the MTRCB held a second review of the film with five other board members led by lawyer Eric Mallonga, and lowered the film's classification to an R-13 rating on September 26.[4]