Filipinos going to Cannes

Director Joanna Vasquez Arong and producer Bianca Balbuena’s project-in-development “The Sigbin Chronicles” has been selected for the Fabriques de Cinemas du Monde, to be held during the Cannes film festival in France in May. Balbuena explained that the Fabriques is “a project market… that allows the director and producer to pitch their project to possible international partners.”

Its website noted that the program is open to “talented young filmmakers… working on their first or second film.” Balbuena said that “Sigbin” is Arong’s first fiction film, although her documentaries have been featured in international festivals.

“Sigbin,” Balbuena related, is “a creature in Cebuano mythology that’s both feared and coveted.” “Joanna and I are both from Cebu. The film is about how the sigbin figures in the lives of three men—a revolutionary, a hitman and an artist—in their quest for freedom,” she said.

“Sigbin” is also a recipient of the 2012 Hubert Bals Script Development Fund, a grant from the Rotterdam fest. Bayani San Diego Jr.