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In a Sep 27 Facebook post, Jonell Estillore, co founder of Film Police Reviews, pointed out that the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) had copied the logo of New York’s Tribeca film Festival. The said “copied” logo was used in the agency’s revamped website, which now displays this notice: “Maintenance mode is on.”
Estillore wrote this caption to accompany the images that he compared. He tagged the MMFF’s official FB account and the MMFF New Wave FB account in his post: “Cinema Bravo! Ummm, bakit niyo po kinokopya, Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) Official? Binura niyo pa ang ‘Tribeca’ at gumamit ng maling typeface (halata po, pramis). At may registered symbol pa. Astig po ba ang paggaya, MMFF New Wave? Nakakahiya po.”
Translation: “Cinema Bravo! Ummm, why did you copy this, Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) Official? You erased ‘Tribeca’ and then you used the wrong typeface for the replacement word. (It’s noticeable.) You even used the registered symbol. Do you feel cool by copying this, MMFF New Wave? It’s a disgrace.”
Later on, Estillore revealed that somebody from the MMFF had contacted him about the matter. He then shared a screen capture of the exchange.
In her message to Estillore, the MMFF representative wrote: “Good morning Sir Jonell. This is Gigi Mallilin of the MMFF Secretariat. On behalf of the team,w e thank you for pointing out the matter on our new website. The preview was not meant to be posted as the website was still under beta testing an nothing was final yet. MMFF has its own graphic brand and no copyright infringement on materials was intended. We have since deleted what was posted and are still finalizing the site. We apologize for the flaring oversight and hope for your understanding. Thank you very much.”
For comparison, check out the “old” MMFF logo below:
