Award-winning film director holds seminar, workshop in Zamboanga

Award-winning film and television director William Mayo gestures as he explains the intricacies involved in filmmaking during a seminar in Zamboanga City. The seminar was sponsored by the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and partnership with Zamboanga City Representative Maria Isabelle Salazar and City Councilor Gerky Valesco and Ateneo de Zamboanga University President Fr Antonio Moreno.

(Mindanao Examiner Photo / Jung Francisco)

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 26, 2009) – Some 30 participants finished a seminar and workshop on filmmaking in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines.

William Mayo, an award-winning film and television director, conducted the three-day workshop held at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University. Mayo, whose films included the epic Lapu-Lapu, discussed the various stages involved in producing a 35-mm movie and digital filmmaking.

“If you have the passion, just do it. Don’t be afraid, be imaginative and pursue your goal and produce a movie. Zamboanga is a beautiful place and it is rich in culture and history and these are very good materials for your film,” said Mayo, who is also the president of the Kapisanan ng mga Direktor ng Pelikulang Pilipino and the Philippine Motion Picture Directors Association, Inc.
Many of the participants were film students and digital filmmakers.

The National Commission on Culture and the Arts and the Film Academy of the Philippines sponsored the workshop in partnership with Zamboanga City Rep. Maria Isabelle Salazar and City Councilor Gerky Valesco and the Ateneo de Zamboanga University.

Fr Antonio Moreno, president of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, also took a brief time and visited the seminar and inspired the participants.

Valesco, himself a television director, who was responsible for organizing the workshop, said a second seminar on advance filmmaking and cinematography is now being planned, including the possible holding of the first Chavacano Film Festival in Zamboanga City later this year.

“We are opening the door to opportunities for our local talents to be known in the field of filmmaking and hopefully to include Zamboanga City among the many cities in the Philippines where filmmaking is striving,” Valesco said.

Salazar, a television documentarist, urged those who finished the workshop to pursue filmmaking here and promote not only Zamboanga, but show that local talents can also be world class. (Jung Francisco)

The Mindanao Examiner Photo: Famed Mexican Director Gustavo Loza

"Al Otro Lado" director Gustavo Loza poses for the Mindanao Examiner during a week-long workshop on film making attended by more than 40 directors, film makers and cinematographers in Manila. The workshop is sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), in cooperation with the Embassy of Mexico and Mowelfund Film Institute (MFI) with support from the President’s Social Fund (PSF).

The film workshop tackled all the processes in creating a movie – from the origin of an idea, its transformation into a film script, its projection on the big screen and other processes involved when directing a film.

Considered as one of the exciting new directors in Mexico, Loza has several films to his credit. Loza’s latest film, “Al otro lado” (To The Other Side), is about the interspersed lives of three children – a Mexican, Moroccan and Cuban – whose fathers have left them to venture in other lands. (Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)