DAVAO CITY—Compostela Valley, along with the rest of the Davao region, would try the open-air screening of independent films, as filmmakers and industry leaders attempt to bring budget films closer to the communities.
The capital town of Compostela Valley, Nabunturan, and the festival organizers announced it would mount community screenings of the films when the best indie films across the country would be shown for film appreciation.
Nabunturan took the first crack at it when it hosted the prefestival screening of the “Best Films from the Regions” at Gaisano Grand Mall Nabunturan on May 19.
The Municipal Tourism Council of Nabunturan Inc. (MTCNI) said organizers used a mobile truck from the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) as a screen as Nabunturan residents “gathered at the entrance area of the mall and watched multiawarded films from Compostela Valley and other provinces in the country”.
Two short films about the open-air cinema in Nabunturan, starring barangay officials and residents of Barangay Santa Maria, were also shown, the MTCNI said. The organization partnered with the Nabunturan municipal government to host the “Road to Cinema Rehiyon 9: Pre-festival Screening of the Best Films from the Regions.”
The MTCNI said organizers would hold similar film screenings in different municipalities and cities in Davao region to promote the festival, also to be hosted by Nabunturan on August 22.
The Cinema Rehiyon 9 in Nabunturan would carry the theme “No Walls, No Ceilings”.
“The tour is aimed to pursue the thrust of the thriving film community in the municipality, Nabunturan Independent Film Exhibition, to bring film appreciation closer to the grassroots level,” the MTCNI said. It added the open-air community screening would become an alternative to the film screenings done in cinema theatres in big cities. It said this would make the ninth staging of Cinema Rehiyon “unique”.
“Nabunturan is the first municipality to host this annual national film festival,” it said.
It added the Cinema Rehiyon is a flagship program of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts Cinema Committee and is being supported by FDCP.
The prefestival screening tour’s final leg would be on July 19 at Ateneo de Davao University.