UP Cinema presents fundraiser with script reading and discussions on queer and alternative cinema
UP Cinema presents fundraiser with script reading and discussions on queer and alternative cinema
Writer-filmmakers Gio Potes, Toni Cañete, and Kuki Zinampan to attend Talking Pictures on March 29
The student film organization, UP Cinema, will host a public script reading and a series of roundtable discussions on alternative filmmaking and queer narratives. The upcoming fundraiser is on Saturday, March 29, at the Student Union Building, UP Diliman, at 5:00 pm.
The entrance fee will be P250, including one drink from Kape Tayo Tea. The majority of proceeds will go to UP Cinema’s free community film workshop program for Filipino high school students in grades 9 to 12.
Meet the writer-filmmakers
Gio Potes
Gio Potes, the writer-filmmaker behind Ulit
Gio Potes is a cultural worker and gender rights advocate from the University of the Philippines Diliman. A graduate of the UP Film Institute, he is active in film and theatrical works, particularly with The UP Repertory Company, UP Dulaang Laboratoryo, and Tag-Ani Performing Arts Society. He has also created five short films that focus on narratives about the LGBTQIA++ community.
Alternating with creative works, Gio conducts workshops on various aspects of theater, as well as seminars and training sessions on gender equality and SOGIESC. He is currently working at the UP Diliman Gender Office as a SOGIESC and Training Officer and is pursuing his Master’s degree at the Department of Women and Development Studies at UP Diliman. He also teaches film and theater as a part-time lecturer at the Far Eastern University.
He will be reading the working script draft of his film, Ulit, on Saturday, March 29.
Ulit (2024)
Film still from Ulit | Taken from the official trailer
Following the EDSA People Power Revolution in the Philippines, two unnamed male lovers meet in a particular room after one of them was taken away by armed men during the Martial Law period, reminiscing about their lives and how to start all over again.
Toni Cañete
Toni Cañete, the writer-filmmaker behind Dala
Toni Cañete is a filmmaker from Cagayan de Oro City, currently based in Quezon City, and an alumna of the University of the Philippines Film Institute. She is the writer/director of pasilong which was hailed First Place in the Documentary Category of the 'Ika-34 Gawad CCP para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video. Another work, desilya bagged the Best Film and Best Screenplay awards at the 21st Mindanao Film Festival.
She gravitates towards the cinema of remembering, the capacity of film to convey loss, absence, and grief by exhibiting what is present, actual, and real, as well as making films that touch and play on the complexities of language, family, religion, and queerness.
She will be reading the script of Dala on Saturday, March 29.
Dala (2023)
Cropped photo of Dala’s (2023) official film poster
Two girls, both desperate to be understood, navigate the push and pull of a single night after one of them overdoses on antipsychotics. They spend the entire night filling their conversations with negotiations between life and death, between memory and oblivion.
Kuki Zinampan
Kuki Zinampan, writer-filmmaker behind Nang Malublob Ako sa Isang Mangkok ng Liwanag
Kuki Zinampan is a writer, film, and theater collaborator hailing from the Rizal province. In 2020, they co-founded Pothos, a collective of young film collaborators rehearsing alternative approaches to filmmaking. Their short film, RAMPAGE! (o ang parada) premiered at the 11th QCinema International Film Festival.
They will be reading the script of Nang Malublob Ako sa Isang Mangkok ng Liwanag on Saturday, March 29.
Nang Malublob Ako sa Isang Mangkok ng Liwanag (2021)
Still from Nang Malublob Ako sa Isang Mangkok ng Liwanag
Two friends, Sunshine and Frena, traverse the pandemic through rumination on mundane things. Segmented into four poetic parts, the 14-day quarantine they experience stretches the boundaries of their sanity and self-hood, all the while grieving and longing for and with each other.
Talking Pictures will take place this Saturday, March 29, at Student Union Building, UP Diliman. Register through this link: https://forms.gle/jJJbrXE49sQWjvTSA
SINEGANG.ph is an official media partner of Talking Pictures.
