Cine Sundays is Inspiring Thousands of Young Filmmakers
By Philbert Dy
September 29, 2021
Over at Rappler, Patrick Miguel writes about Cine Sundays, perhaps one of the most positive things to come out of the pandemic for the film community. The weekly webinar, hosted over Zoom, has director Dan Villegas moderating discussions with various film professionals on all manner of topics relating to the industry. Want to know what it’s like to shoot commercials? No less than Mike Alcazaren and Nic Reyes will show up. Want to learn about scriptwriting? They might just have Ricky Lee over talking about it.
What started as a few students reaching out to Villegas has become somewhat of an informal film school, where all the teachers are all actively working professionals in the field. There are no lesson plans, and no requirements to pass in. It’s just a weekly chance for young people to pick the brains of filmmakers, and to learn from their experiences.
The article highlights how during the lockdown, in the absence of active productions, Cine Sundays became a means of letting aspiring filmmakers get an idea of what the industry is actually like:
“UP Diliman Malikhaing Pagsulat (creative writing) student and Cine Sundays core team member Eunice Helera said, “It’s Cine Sundays where director Dan taught us what it’s like working in the set. Mas lalong nagiging clear ‘yung path na gusto mong tahakin (It gets clearer what kind of path you wanted to take).”
And this, in general, seems to be the biggest benefit of Cine Sundays: it’s an accessible way to really get an understanding of what working in the film industry is really like. The article points out that the Cine Sundays Facebook group has grown to over four thousand members, most of whom would probably identify as aspiring filmmakers. Villegas seems to have cracked open the gates of the film industry, simply by letting people talk to each other.
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