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QCinema Project Market (QPM) wrapped this weekend with an awards ceremony in which cash prizes and in-kind services worth $442,000 were handed out to projects from the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia.
The event is part of an expanding roster of industry programmes at QCinema International Film Festival (November 8-17), one of the Philippines’ major film gatherings, hosted by Quezon City, which is the largest city within the vast metropolitan area of Metro Manila.
While the festival has been running for 12 years, QPM (November 14-16) was holding its second edition this year, and was joined by the launch of Asian Next Wave Film Forum, a series of panel discussions, masterclasses and case studies of regional co-productions.
QPM selected 20 projects, including ten from the Philippines and ten from the rest of Southeast Asia. Winning projects included Myanmar-Indonesia co-production The Beer Girl In Yangon and upcoming works from Filipino filmmakers Martika Ramirez Escobar, Eve Baswel, and Sonny Calvento.
Liza Diño, executive director of Quezon City Film Commission, which organizes QPM, says the market is part of plans to solidify the Philippines’ position in the fast-growing Southeast Asian wave of international co-productions and producer networks. “We’ve been doing this work in the Philippines for several years, finding ways to collaborate with other Southeast Asian filmmakers, and supporting that with funding,” says Diño, referring to co-productions including Viet And Nam and Plan 75, in which Filipino producers played a major role.
“But we wanted to expand our industry platform so we can have some continuity for our work in Southeast Asia and understand which other territories the Philippines can actually work with,” she continues. “Latin America is an obvious one to explore because of our shared Spanish heritage.”
Lack of continuity has been a growing issue in Southeast Asia over the past year, as several countries have had a change in government, which has inevitably impacted film policy and funding. Diño was herself head of Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), until a change of national government following an election in 2022.
Meanwhile, the Asian Next Wave Film Forum, held for the first time this year, aims to open up all that international knowledge and experience to other producers, filmmakers, scholars and film enthusiasts in the Philippines film industry.
“The Viet And Nam case study was really eye opening for our local filmmakers who have been making smaller films in the Philippines and haven’t yet tried doing international co-production,” explains Manet Dayrit, president of Quezon City Film Foundation, which oversees the festival and the new forum.
But while Viet And Nam, an eight-country co-production that premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival, is firmly in the arthouse category, Dayrit explains that both the forum and QPM are also exploring the convergence between arthouse and genre filmmaking.
“This year’s theme was ‘Riding the Wave: Shifting Tides of Arthouse and Genre’ because we feel the boundaries between arthouse and genre are becoming intertwined in Asia and we wanted to look at how to navigate that shift,” Dayrit says.
Many of the projects selected for QPM also reflected this trend – some such as Kenneth Dagatan’s Molder, Atsuko Hirayanagi’s The Returning, Calvento’s Mother Maybe and Mario Cornejo’s My Neighbor The Gangster contain elements of horror, thriller, supernatural and comedy.
Meanwhile, the QCinema film festival is also expanding – in addition to its main competition section, Asian Next Wave, it gave awards in the New Horizons section for first and second features and the LGBTQ+ themed Rainbow QC. Winers in New Horizons included Toxic, from Lithuanian director SauléBliuvaité, and Cu Li Never Cries, from Vietnam’s Pham Ngoc Lân. In RainbowQC competition, awards went to Marcelo Caetano’s Baby and Mikko Mäkelä’s Sebastian.
Two Vietnamese films – Viet And Nam and Don’t Cry Butterfly – also won prizes in Asian Next Wave. “It’s been a strong year for Vietnamese cinema,” says QCinema artistic director Ed Lejano. “They’ve been on a roll for the past three years, especially for arthouse films, some of which are being released commercially. Filipino arthouse cinema is also seeing more films getting realised through project markets and regional co-production.”
Interestingly, however, the award-winning Filipino film in Asian Next Wave – Bor Ocampo’s Moneyslapper, which received its world premiere in QCinema and won best actor for John Lloyd Cruz, was not a co-production. “It was a fully Filipino indie production, but was co-produced by its star,” Lejano explains.
Looking at the bigger picture, Diño and Dayrit explain that the festival and industry programmes are all part of a wider vision by Quezon City, which is bidding to become recognized as a UNESCO Creative City of Film, with the support of Quezon City mayor Joy Belmonte.
More than 70% of Metro Manila’s film and TV industry workers are based in Quezon City, which is also home to several TV networks, including ABS-CBN and GMA, studio facilities and major production companies, along with the Philippines’ Congress and many national government departments.
There are now plans to make Quezon City more of an international location. “The government has very proactive plans to make Quezon City a filming destination, to bring international co-production here, and to come up with incentives and other kinds of support,” Diño explains.
While it’s early days, talks are on-going to see how the city’s Amusement Tax, levied on box office, concerts and other entertainment activities, could be used to upskill local film workers and attract more international productions to Quezon City.
