BEAM Newsletter

Young and talented BEAM staff receives film awards

BEAM Materials Development Multimedia Artist McRobert “Coicoi” Nacario and Graphic Artist Fernand Salinas received awards at the Community Short Film on Good Governance in Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) funded by the Philippines-Canada Local Government Support Program (LGSP).

Coicoi, Fernand and other filmmakers attended the screening of their films in Notre Dame University, Cotabato City on February 25, 2008. The screening was attended by the Canadian Ambassador Robert Desjardines and guests from different Local Government Units (LGU’s) in the country. The event saw the awarding of the Best Film, Best Community Story and Citation of Excellence from the seven Mindanao Short Films which were also shown in the Kontra Agos Film Festival.

Coicoi directed the film “Biniton”, written by Sharon Mae Delos Santos (who had also worked in the Access Program) and with sound supervision by Fernand Salinas.

The film illustrates the preparation and cooking of a dish called “Biniton”, particular to the community of Saniag, Ampatuan, Cotabato City. While cooking, an old woman relates the hardships they experienced amidst past armed conflicts. At the same time, her grandson Amel describes the current situation of their community and how despite the hardships and differences in culture they all managed to become united.

“Biniton” won 3^rd place and awarded as the Best Community Story. The film “A Step for my Dream”, edited by Fernand Salinas, won 2^nd place in the same category. The film is a story of seven-year-old Abdul who dreams of becoming a leader of his town. He has natural charisma and easily becomes friends with people even if he has not known them for long. But his grandmother reminds him of their peasant roots which is no match to the traditional ruling family. Undaunted, Abdul sees it as a challenge and envisions his future.

Ten filmmakers were invited to create short films, funded by Philippines-Canada Local Government Support Program in ARMM. They were asked to develop a story on a particular ARMM community that depicted good governance. One of the lucky film production units invited was Micromedia Productions, represented by McRobert Nacario, Fernand Salinas, Sharon Mae Delos Santos. The group was assigned to develop a story for Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Sharon attended workshops with the local people and created the story line for “Biniton”. The group spent seven days at Barangay Saniag, working with the community and gathering materials to film the story. The community comprised of Teduray, Maguindanao and Ilonggo people gave their full support to the project. The local government of Ampatuan Maguindanao provided the group food, accommodation, transportation and security escort.The group’s previous film Marso Kwatro (Fourth Of March) inspired by the March 4, 2003 Davao Airport bombing that killed 21 people and injured hundreds; an official entry to Guerilla Filmmaking 4 Film festival in 2006 also won Best Actor, Best Musical Scoring, Best Editing,  Best Cinematography, Best Director and Red Fist.

These young talents are again commissioned to do a short film about Global Warming expected to be released in June 2008.