East ASEAN Film Meeting set in GenSan

Various film professionals and industry stakeholders from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines-East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) are set to meet at the first BIMP-EAGA Film Connection Meeting slated at the Suncity Suites in General Santos City on November 27, 2013.

 

The film meeting will focus on creating and boosting the network of film organizations, festivals and industries in the BIMP-EAGA region, presenting the status of film production, marketing, financing and distribution in the BIMP-EAGA, identifying and developing areas of possible collaboration and exchanges, determining potential and already existing content that is suitable and marketable to academic and cultural institutions as well as commercial cable and TV programming in Muslim-dominated population such as the ARMM, and creating a platform for film tourism in the region.

 

Organized by the Mindanao Center for the Moving Image in collaboration with the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the meeting will take place during the inaugural SalaMindanaw International Film Festival.

 

Teng Mangansakan, Festival Director and Convenor of the Film Meeting, said this is in keeping with the Festival’s thrust to initiate and strengthen cultural ties in the BIMP-EAGA region, and in recognition of the steady growth of regional cinemas in this region which have close proximity to one another, this exploratory meeting is being organized to discuss possible cross-cultural collaboration and mutual audiovisual development initiatives that can be undertaken among stakeholders in the region.

 

“In recent years, Mindanao filmmakers have produced a substantial number of films which tackle issues relevant to the BIMP-EAGA like human trafficking in Sheron Dayoc’s Halaw or cultural artifacts in Dempster Samarista’s Taguri but we are still in dire need of a market. There is a need to identify potential market for films and explore them. This meeting might address that need,” he added.

 

SalaMindanaw is the first international film festival in southern Philippines which aims to raise awareness and promote international cinema with emphasis on strengthening the cultural ties between Mindanao and its ASEAN neighbors, support the nascent film movement in the region, engage the public in both popular and critical discourse on art and cinema and their transformative power to shape ideas about society, thus encouraging cultural diversity and the plurality ofcreative expressions, and boost film tourism in the region.


Press release from Salamindanaw International Film Festival