QCinema names #QCShorts grantees
A diverse program of themes and styles are in store for all viewers in QCinema’s 10th year, which will blaze the big screens in November.
This year’s winning short films examine cinema and interrogate space created, recreated and destroyed through it. These are Ang Pagliligtas sa Dalagang Bukid by Jaime Morados, BOLD EAGLE by Whammy Alcazaren, Luzonensis mula 7 hanggang 9 by Glenn Barit, Mga Tigre ng Infanta by Rocky de Guzman Morilla, Ngatta Naddaki y Nuang? (Why did the Carabao cross the Carayan?) by Austin Tan, and sa ilog na hindi nagtatapos by JT Trinidad.
For these filmmakers, their personal testaments form a collective vision that forges on to a crossroad for cinema that seeks resuscitation through fresh initiatives.
Ang Pagliligtas sa Dalagang Bukid (Saving the Country Maiden), which is set in 1921, tells how 16-year-old Joaquin attempts to save the film reel of the first movie he’s ever seen in the midst of a studio fire. BOLD EAGLE is the story of Bold, an anonymous online-sex worker who seeks validation from his cat as he wonders if he can amount to something more than just a pretty face. In Luzonensis mula 7 hanggang 9, a “neanderthal” man named Luzonensis discovers his passport is missing as he was about to leave for abroad to work and together with his father, they retrace their path back to find it.
Mga Tigre ng Infanta follows Katrina’s wild hunt deep into the psyche of her grandmother, whose corpse has gone missing. Ngatta Naddaki y Nuang? (Why did the Carabao cross the Carayan?) tracks Oyo’s return to his hometown in Cagayan in search of a carabao, before he finally migrates to another country, while memories of a flood and sights of industrialization fill him. Lastly, sa ilog na hindi nagtatapos, is the story of four individuals which unfold through Baby, a middle-aged trans woman.
Members of the selection committee are QCinema monitoring head and actress Kristine Kintana, festival director Prof. Ed Lejano, writer and director Pam Miras, producer Armi Cacanindin, film critic Jason Tan Liwag, and director and editor Carlo Manatad, who joined the pitching via Zoom.