Director Petersen Vargas’new feature film won the Grand Prize at the 3rd Southeast Asian Fiction Film Lab (SEAFIC) Awards in Thailand.
Vargas’s film titled “Some Nights I Feel Like Walking”, co-produced by Jade Castro and Alemberg Ang, received a cash grant of $15,000 (Php768,000) from SEAFIC at the awards ceremony held at Alliance Francaise Bangkok on October 28.
The film, currently in pre-production, is the Filipino filmmaker’s second full-length film following his debut film “2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten” which won the 2016 CinemaOne Originals Film Festival Best Picture award.
“Some Nights I Feel Like Walking” is the story of the adventure and coming-of-age tale of a rich teenager who runs away from home and joins a street gang that goes on a road trip to fulfill the final wish of their dead friend.
Vargas shared that his new film “aims at being a portrait of a nation… and of a city, homeland, people as seen through its outskirts and shadows.”
Petersen Vargas and the other 4 finalists from Indonesia, Vietnam, and Myanmar underwent the SEAFIC intensive script development lab for Southeast Asian filmmakers to help them enhance their feature-length fiction films with 3 lab sessions conducted within a period of 8 months from February to October 2019.
Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) partnered with SEAFIC to encourage and support Filipino filmmakers to develop relevant quality films that can appeal and reach across our borders. FDCP brought a Filipino delegation of filmmakers to the SEAFIC events.,
FDCP Executive Director Ria Anne Rubia was at the awarding ceremony and gave some words of support and encouragement to the filmmakers, saying, “We’re actually very proud to support them. We feel like this is a very important platform that allows for the projects to really have a holistic type of development. We’re very happy for them and we hope for the fruition of this project.”
Filipino filmmakers have been receiving critical support and acclaim in competitions, among them, Iar Lionel Benjamin Arondaing’s “Musmos na Sumibol sa Gubat ng Digma” which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2019 Baikal International Film Festival in Russia.
Diane Paragas’ Yellow Rose and Kerwin Go’s “Mina-Anud” are competing at the 2019 Hawaii International Film Festival in November.
Cathy Garcia-Molina’s “Hello, Love, Goodbye” vies for Best Asian Film at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards this December.
Alyx Ayn Arumpac’s “Aswang” competes for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam Competition for First Appearance also this December.
SEND congratulations in the comments below to Petersen Vargas and our Filipino filmmakers for showcasing Filipino filmmaking on the global stage!
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