I'd like to refute the claims of this jerome.manato, that there is no existing film community here in Cebu, as someone who apparently doesn't have the scholarly knowledge of historical heritage of Cebuano cinema.
To just have a glimpse of Cebu's Cinema history, please read the Freeman article here
There
is an existing film community here in Cebu, it is
small however but
substantial nonetheless. Its even recognized by the National Commission of Culture and Arts who relayed information on grants and financial support on eligible projects through its Cinema committee chair Teddy Co.
pnoize and I are part of this small Cebuano film community and made it our personal priority to keep this community growing without payment, without price-- just pure passion of sharing something we love to others, so that they too can learn to love it as well. And yes some of our works appear to be the work of students because we ARE still students, learning on our own-- as my friend pnoize once put it, students of the University of Hard Knocks. That's where our pride lies, our pure passion. We're not looking to be paid for what we love to do. For fun, for refinement, for the simple joy of art becoming a craft, just doing it and learning how to do it well is the Prize we seek and receive.
And now our community however small it is
now getting stronger. It is being made strong with the efforts of Sir
Ron Heri Tan, an 18 year veteran of mainstream Philippine Cinema, who's worked with Ishmael Bernal, Lino Brocka and Cesar Montano, on projects like "Mara Clara", "Esperanza" and his last works the multi-awarded films "Tuhog" and "Panaghoy sa Suba". But most of all, Sir Ron is a Cebuano from Dumanjug who finally realized he belongs where he is needed most, at home in Cebu.
Our community is made strong also through the efforts of
Jerrold Tarug,
Publio Briones,
Bambi Beltran and
Ruel Antipuesto whose obra maestra "Confessional" shot mostly in Cebu, co-produced by ABS-CBN Cinema One, is a majority winner of both the Cinema One Originals and 24th PMPC Star Awards and best film of the 10th Osian Film Festival of Asian and Arabian Cinema.
Ruel Antipuesto went to the Cannes Film Festival-Short Film Corner this year through his film collaboration "Sabongero" with Janice Perez, shot in Mactan and whose characters and dialogue are purely Cebuano.
Jerrold, Ruel, Publio even Pnoize and I were once a part of the IAFTV. We learned from the instructors there regarding filmmaking but ony realized the truth, that the craft of filmmaking was something that cannot be taught but can only be learned through experiment and experience.
And that what the school wanted to teach was things and policies we did not want to practice because it was a betrayal of who we are as Cebuanos and Filipinos and what we ought to do. It isn't just about getting to use the expensive equipment and being able to shoot abroad, but taking pride of who you are as a person, your origins, your culture, and able to celebrate that through Cinema as filmmakers. That was something that the school did not, would not, could not teach and so we went on to learn on our own.
Cebu has a filmmaking community, it always had a filmmaking community and like anything in life, it experienced death and rebirth, like the rise and fall of the tides, like the coming and going of generations. Now it may be small, but it is growing in both strength and number. If we seem boastful, it is simply because we have passion, we have hope, we have determination and as I previously stated, we have results, good results made by Jerrold, Bambi and others.
SineBuano will continue doing what it does to help support them and getting the community involved, serving a majority, an island of people to remember their cultural heritage, to rise to the call of the independent filmmaking scene.
There will be those who would just stand by the sidelines and say nothing can be done-- and there will be those who would step into the fray, support the true-to-the-heart works of others and do something just for the sake of trying to make something happen.
This jerome.manoto seems to have chosen the former while pnoize and I,
SineBuano, have chosen the latter, to do something. It's a small thing now, but small things have the tendency to grow into something bigger. It's the nature of things.