The 2021 edition of the National Committee on Cinema’s flagship project – Cinema Rehiyon kicks off February 28, 10:00 am redefining itself as it goes global, defying limitations of boundaries, of gender and even of pandemic.
Anthropologist, film critic/educator and Cinema Rehiyon 2021 Festival Director TitoGenova Valiente said Cinema Rehiyon will still be about films from the region, now redefined according to the spaces created by online engagement.
“It will be an online edition. No geographical and social boundaries. The new version will free Cinema Rehiyon from many limitations. The limitations of labels. The limitations of being defined by Manila. The limitations of gender and traditions,” Valiente added. More than a hundred films are programmed for this year’s Cinema Rehiyon under the BABAYI, BABAYLAN 2021 Cinema Rehiyon Women and LGBTQIA+, BEST OF CINEMA FROM THE REGIONS: The Role of Regional Filmmakers in Troubling Times, and the 16
films from Eksena Cinema Quarantine programs.
Filmmaker and Cultural Worker Adjani Arumpac programmed the films about Gender issues that are never neutral.
In the curation of films about LGBTQIA+ and Woman, Arumpac proceeds from a position of politics and ideology, that blurs the line between advocacy and art, action and thought.
Meanwhile, Filmmaker and Regional Cinema Advocate Elvert Bañares’ curation presents cinema as ethnography where he allows the fields, which are the regions, to speak, and
reports the concerns and aesthetics from these peripheries.
In this programming, BEST OF CINEMA FROM THE REGIONS: The Role of Regional Filmmakers in Troubling Times, we listen to the filmmakers, and view the landscapes and
stories they share.
National Commission for Culture and the Arts- National Committee on Cinema chairperson Rolando Tolentino said this is a different version of the Cinema Rehiyon since it is using 100 percent online platform. “Unlike the past Cinema Rehiyons, for the first time Cinema Rehiyon 2021 will go nationwide, in fact it will go global with the online platforms. This means that the films can be viewed on demand via livestream, 24/7,” Tolentino said during the NCCA’s virtual presser.
Cinema Rehiyon 2021 offers not just screenings of these curated films but also Master Classes, Webinars, Talkbacks, Town Hall with the festival’s Global Kick Off on February
28 at 10:00am via its FB page: Cinema Rehiyon @cinemarehiyonofficial, Vimeo platform: https://bit.ly/NCCANCC and Youtube Channel: @Cinema Rehiyon.
