Cinemalaya Sails to New Direction, Creates Film Lab

The winds of change have caught the sails of the Cinemalaya’s balanghai and take the film festival into a new direction. Amid the social realities brought by the global health situation where existing protocols make it impossible for the 2020 and 2021 batch to complete their films on time, Cinemalaya re-thinks its direction and strategy to remain significant while continuing to fulfill its mission of discovering, encouraging, supporting, training and recognizing gifted Filipino independent filmmakers. While Cinemalaya advocates artistic freedom and creative expression, it pushes filmmakers to break the mold, upskill their filmmaking processes and techniques, and experiment with new ways of storytelling. For its 2023 edition, Cinemalaya introduces a new direction and further expands its cinematic boundaries through the Cinemalaya Film Lab, a three-month-long film-laboratory mentorship program happening on September to November 2021, conducted entirely online. The film lab adheres to the education values of the Cinemalaya Institute, bringing together resource persons from different aspects of filmmaking -- from scriptwriting, directing, cinematography, performance, editing, production design, sound, music, production management to promotion strategies. By doing this, the Cinemalaya hopes to expand the Main Competition to include feature-length documentaries while encouraging filmmakers to focus on subject matters that capture the heart of the Filipinos. Cinemalaya likewise encourages submissions that combine different genres (“multi-genres”) and even “multimedia” (live action with animation or purely animation). At the same time, it intends to prioritize film concepts that are workable or manageable to produce. To join, interested participant should check requirement from www.culturalcenter.gov.ph or www.cinemalaya.org. Send your entries through this link http://bit.ly/Cinemalaya2023EntryForm or to the Film, Broadcast and Media Arts Division of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Roxas Blvd., Pasay City. Deadline for submission is at 6pm on June 11, 2021 (Friday).