MANILA, Philippines?To boost the box-office pull of independent films at its screening venues, Robinsons Movieworld is relaunching IndieSine next month. The Independent Filipino Filmmakers Multi-purpose Cooperative (IFC) is introducing a new approach to programming.

The following films will be screened in June and July: Cinema One?s ?Imburnal? (Sherad Sanchez), ?Yanggaw? (Richard Somes) and ?Dose? (Senedy Que); Cinemalaya?s ?Boses? (Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil), ?Brutus? (Tara Illenberger) and ?Namets? (Jay Abello). Cris Pablo?s ?Boylets? will also be screened.

Time slot

Aside from its regular schedule, IndieSine will show a film during the 1 p.m. screening for a whole month. In June, Arkeofilms? ?Baby Angelo? will be featured in that time slot.

IFC?s Doy del Mundo shares, ?IndieSine was temporarily halted last month. For over a year, Robinsons shared the burden of ?nonperforming? films?and there were many of them. Now, we need to take a serious look at marketing.?

Producer Marge Templo notes, ?IndieSine is still the only ?commercial? cinema in the country available to indie films. The new programming will allow films to run a longer course and give them time to develop an audience through word-of-mouth publicity. People will experience a different kind of movie in ?Baby Angelo.??

According to Del Mundo, the biggest challenge a filmmaker faces is booking. ?There aren?t too many theaters equipped with digital-film projectors. If you find a venue equipped with one, the next problem is how to get people to patronize your movie. In terms of marketing, indie filmmakers don?t have the kind of money that mainstream producers have. So, we need to develop an audience?and that?s where IndieSine comes in.?