Council reaches out to regions for film education

By Juan Escandor Jr. NAGA CITY---Reaching out to the regions, the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) is launching film education for teachers to provide them with basic knowledge on the art of film making and the film industry. Wilfredo Manalang, executive director of the FDCP, said the film education program they are pursuing now is dubbed “Planting the Seeds, the Future of Philippine Cinema.” “We conducted open forum in the regions with film makers and stakeholders. We tried to assess what are the needs of the film industry and what came out was the basic needs for education like how to make a film, what is a film,” Manalang said. He said the FDCP film education program therefore is intended to educators who will be taught on the general and basic knowledge of film making and the film industry for them to spread the knowledge to their students. “So, we are expecting that the teachers will be equipped with basic knowledge on film making that they can teach to their students. So, we expect them do the planting (the knowledge in film making) to some degree,” Manalang said. He said after the film education for teachers, they will mobilize next the students by conducting series of workshops in which the teachers will also invited. Manalang said the topics in the series of workshops include story development, script writing, cinematography, production design, actual directing, acting, editing, and post-production work. “We will dissect the process of film making for the students to fully understand in a series of workshops to encourage them to make a film,” he said. Manalang said that in some regions they launched inter-collegiate festivals after the series of workshops in which schools will compete in a short-film festival. “Hopefully, by the end of the year we will have screenings of best films from the regions,” he said. Manalang said the film education program would raise the level of film making in the Philippines from the cultural to professional and to an industry. Tito Valiente, film critic and educator, said the film education program for teachers here comprised of the film education on the first day, and on the second day, the topic will be creating synergy between students and the school on how to put up and conduct film conference and festival. Valiente said the topic about film making will also be discussed on the third day by Raymond Red, a famous film director.