2018 grantees take center stage in QCinema

With a little push and with an ample dose of enablers, creativity takes form. Organizers of QCinema International Film Festival (QCinema) know this too well. For its sixth edition, QCinema continues its thrust to advance the local film industry with grants provided for a select set of new independent features and documentaries.

QCinema’s steady pursuit to make Quezon City the cradle of arts and culture bears fruit with the lineup of films for the Circle Competition and DocQC section.

Helping emerging filmmakers to have the opportunity to showcase their work, the festival provides substantial grants for film production.

Selected filmmakers under the Circle Competition section received a grant of one and a half million pesos each while filmmakers under DocQC section received 300,000 pesos. The grantees will also be able to retain their rights to the films they have created.

Circle Competition

The films selected under the Circle Competition section of the festival are Samantha Lee’s “Billie & Emma,” Timmy Harn’s “DOG DAYS,” Dan Villegas’ “Hintayan ng Langit,” Dwein Baltazar’s “Oda sa Wala,” and Gutierrez Mangansakan II’s “Masla A Papanok.”

The five filmmakers will vie for the Pylon Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Artistic Achievement, as well as NETPAC Jury Prize and Gender Sensitivity.

“Billie & Emma” explores the fleeting nature of love and life. Billie, who is forced to move to the province, meets Emma, an ambitious model student who suddenly gets pregnant. Together, they go on a journey of growth, laughter, and music.

“DOG DAYS” shows the story of half-black, half-Filipino Michael Jordan Ulili who wants to chase his dreams of becoming a basketball superstar. The rookie player believes he has special God-given powers to have what it takes but his journey leads him somewhere where he is faced with the reality of his fate.

In “Hintayan ng Langit,” a woman in limbo comes to grips with her past. Lisang, who has been waiting for two years in purgatory, is finally set to crossover. But a shortage of rooms forces her to share a room with a man from her past.

“Oda sa Wala” tells the story about Sonya, an old maid that crosses path with a mysterious corpse in her family owned funeral shop which suddenly brings her strange luck and fortune.

In “Masla A Papanok,” Mangansakan goes back to 1892 when a giant bird mysteriously appears in Maguindanao foretelling the fall and rise of colonial empires.

DocQC

The DocQC section of the festival for documentaries will show Wena Sanchez’s “All Grown Up” and Hiyas Baldemore Bagabaldo’s “Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala.”

In “All Grown Up,” Sanchez tells a story about what it means to help the people you love the most. After years of nurturing and protecting her younger brother, a filmmaker is forced to question her ability to help the people she loves when her own daughter begins to have troubles of her own.

Bagabaldo’s “Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala” shows a 5-year visual ethnography of the traditional yet practical orchestration of Semana Santa in a small artisanal town where religious wood carving is the livelihood.

QCinema will run from October 21 to 30, 2018, at Gateway Mall (Cineplex 10); Robinsons Galleria (Robinsons Movieworld); and Ayala Malls Cinema in Trinoma and U.P. Town Center.

Local screenings will run from October 24 to 30, 2018 at SM Fairview, SM Megamall, SM Manila, and SM Southmall.