Pinoy short film competes in Australia, Nepal
AN outstanding capstone project from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde will vie for awards at the Melbourne Short Film Festival and Nepal International Film Festival next month.
“Balai” (Home), a thesis film by DLSCSB Digital Filmmaking alumna Klarisse Purugganan and Selene Almeron, is nominated for Best Experimental Short at the 2020 MSFF in Melbourne, Australia on Feb. 10.
It is also one of 80 entries from 40 countries selected to contend at the NFF in Kathmandu, Nepal from Feb. 13 to 17.
The short film, which bagged the grand jury prize at the 67th Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Awards last year, tells the story of an orphan boy, plagued with alienation and loneliness, who finds inspiration in a sick roommate as they find a real home.
The young filmmakers got the idea for their short film from an unborn child.
“He was supposed to be named Karlo. A woman I know had a miscarriage several years ago. She had a dream of Karlo playing along with her other children. Their connection was bonded in a subconscious thought,” Purugganan, who wrote and directed the short film, revealed.
Purugganan added that throughout the entire filmmaking process, the understanding of spirituality has always been in their minds.
“People always say what you see is what you get, but only because we live in this physical world where material things matter. We still don’t know what’s beyond this lifetime and not all people are going to believe in it. But it has opened the possibilities of unexplained spiritual connection to human beings and how it guided us along our film’s journey,” she said.