The University of Santo Tomas recently conducted a film workshop for the participating production teams of Sampung Sulyap 2019 and other aspiring filmmakers from the Thomasian community at the UST Tan Yan Kee Student Center.
Becarios de Santo Tomas, an organization of UST scholars, co-organized the workshop with the Thomasian Film Society, the university’s premiere film organization. The scholars’ group also hosts the annual Sampung Sulyap short film festival featuring ten inspiring Thomasian stories.
Award-winning filmmaker Mikhail Red shared his experiences in directing. He helmed the full-length films Birdshot, Best Film in the Asian Future section in Tokyo and official Philippine entry to the 90th Academy Awards; Rekorder, Best Director winner in Vancouver; and the critically-acclaimed Neomanila for last year’s QCinema International Film Festival, He recently wrapped up production for Eerie and is now working on Block Z, both for Star Cinema.
Advocacy filmmaker and film educator Seymour Sanchez discussed scriptwriting and other aspects of pre-production. Sanchez, a product of the 14th Ricky Lee scriptwriting workshop, won the grand prize in the screenplay category of the 59th Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature and second prize for Caretaker in the sixth CAM International Festival for Short Films in Egypt.
Johmar Damiles, director of photography and co-writer of the award-winning short film Heist School, talked about cinematography. A video producer at Pixelens Creative Solutions, he previously served as videographer of TomasinoWeb and Vice President for Productions of TFS.
Sampung Sulyap aims to highlight the creativity of Thomasians in filmmaking and production as well as to motivate people from all walks of life with films focused on the theme Sampung Tomasino, Sampung Natatanging Kwento ng Prinsipyo.
The short films will be produced by local and university-wide student organizations and will be featured in a week-long event at the Thomas Aquinas Research Complex auditorium next year. An awards night will also be held to recognize the exemplary talents showcased in the films.
