UST CFAD Sining Sine is a short film competition of University of Santo Tomas College of Fine Arts and Design students. It was originally conceived as a simple classroom project to assess the understanding of the students of their course on creating videos for advertising. Eventually, it became a platform to all aspiring student filmmakers to expose their fresh talents, creativity and skills in storytelling through the use of an accessible and affordable medium like their DSLR cameras or the built-in video cameras of their mobile phones.
Prior to the competition a seminar is conducted featuring filmmakers entitled “Obra Produktura”. The term “Obra”, for masterpiece or art, while “Produktura”, a combination of production and culture. The jargon was born based on the purpose of the film talks wherein the country’s filmmakers share their experiences in the process of creating their films and what’s the culture of the production team in the film industry. Past speakers were directors, cinematographers, scriptwriters and production designers namely King Palisoc, Mackie Galvez, Zig Marasigan, Mihk Vergara, Miko Livelo, JP Habac, Nestor Abrogena, Eros Atalia, John Torres, Allan Balberona, Melai Entuna, Ice Idanan, and just recently AB Garcia and Joseph Abello.
The seminars obviously ignited the students’ love for filmmaking so they started casting indie film actors and sponsors are starting to pour in.
This year’s theme will revolve around stories of HOPE, to instill inspiration to Filipinos despite unfortunate circumstances. All entries must have a storyline that should have relevance to national and social issues. Images and scenes showing any forms of extreme violence, nudity, inappropriate language, vices, gambling, use and abuse of alcohol, addiction, prohibited drugs and other illegal substances shall not be approved in the competition. This is in accordance with the university’s promotion of Thomasian values. The short films should only run for a maximum of 20 minutes.
This year, out of 29 submissions only 5 films were shortlisted namely: “Hopeless Romantic”, “Kape”, “Nosebleed”, “Springs” and “Narito”. Catch these stories on May 11 at the Beato Gallery from 8-5pm and another screening will be on May 17 8-5pm at the Beato AVR followed by the awarding of the winners.
This event is also made possible by Mober, The Craft Central, When In Manila, InqPOP!, and INQUIRER.NET.