Gearing up for 2016 Cinemalaya

EIGHT OF the 10 finalists of the 2016 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival are already in the postproduction stage, festival director Chris Millado said when asked by the Inquirer for updates on the annual indie fete slated for August.

“Remember that we rebooted our process. Before, filmmakers were given barely six months to look for partners, to shoot and do their post-production work,” said Millado during the recent A-Press-Ciation lunch organized by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Millado is also CCP’s artistic director.

“Now they’re given a year and a half to finish everything. I can confidently say that they’re almost done. Last week, the screening committee met with the filmmakers chosen as semifinalists for 2017,” he pointed out.

Another big development, said Millado, is the creation of the Cinemalaya Institute. “It’s only on its second year. The first was quite successful because we got students from CSB (College of Saint Benilde) and practitioners from GMA 7. This year, we’re limiting the number of participants to 15 per course.”

Millado noted the increasing number of film festivals all over the country since Cinemalaya was established 12 years ago. “Cinemalaya pioneered the holding of festivals on a big scale. There are still challenges—one is how to sustain the work even outside the festival’s two-week run. The presence of other festivals actually helps sustain local films.”

He observed: “But now that there are so many festivals, Cinemalaya included, they need to get their acts together. The different festival organizers need to talk to each other to look at how they could maximize their resources to help filmmakers and the industry sustain works not just for a limited time, but for a longer period.”

Millado also announced some of the CCP’s activities for 2016, as follows: The launch of the revised version of the CCP encyclopedia for Philippine Arts is tentatively set for September.

This year, the CCP will also host the national theater festival, which happens once every five years.

In November, it will produce the children’s show, “The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!”

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