Ateneo Video Open 13 Deadline

The Ateneo Video Open, now on its thirteenth year, is an annual nationwide film competition open to collegiate-level filmmakers.

The event aims to highlight the effective use of aesthetically pleasing films as media for social discourse. There are four categories: short narrative, music video, documentary, and experimental. The competition would end in an awards night where cash prizes await winners of each category judged by renowned persons in the field of film and art.

Please be reminded that the deadline for your entries is on January 20, at 5pm. Just go to Ateneo de Manila University (along Katipunan Ave., QC), ask around for the MVP building, and proceed to room 308. The Loyola Film Circle org room will be open from Monday-Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Please refer to the Ateneo Video Open website for reminders, FAQs, and additional information. Thanks and good luck with your entries! http://ateneovideoopen13.tumblr.com/

AGIT POP! Post-Its To The Post Apocalypse

AGIT POP! Post-Its To The Post Apocalypse

Secret Fresh’s year opener for 2012 is an exhibit of poster art created by Manila’s top and up and coming graphic designers and artists who also venture into illustration. The show opening this January 8 Sunday at 6 PM is entitled AGIT POP! Post-Its To The Post Apocalypse and showcases their poster designs which imagines them as message boards to a future world promising utopic visions in the aftermath of an imagined anticipated holocaust as prodded by the much Mayan calendar footnoting of the year 2012. Reversing the doomdsday prophesies, the posters present instead a possibility beyond such eventuality, speculating on the premise of a promised renewed world or the unfulfillment of such in a rather dystopia.

AGIT POP! Will be on view till the 27th of January. Secret Fresh is at Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan, MM. Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2 to 10PM and Sundays from 1 to 6PM.

A First: William Shakespeare's King Lear in Filipino

MANILA, Philippines - William Shakespeare is regarded as the greatest global dramatist ever. His works has prompted so many adaptations and retellings and has been articulated in many different forms and languages. However, we Filipinos have never seen one of his greatest plays, King Lear, done in graceful liquid Tagalog prose - until now.

After the back-to-back success of Philippine Educational Theater Association's (PETA) Shakespeare rap musical 'William' and its box office comedy-drama 'Care Divas', PETA opens 2012 with another brave opus: the first-ever Filipino adaptation of William Shakespeare's evocative masterpiece, King Lear.

Set in a post-nuclear world that is strangely contemporary and familiar, Shakespeare's King Lear receives a fitting, royal makeover, fashioned by a pool of Filipino theater giants.

National Artist for Literature, Bienvenido Lumbera translates the text into prose while retaining the rhythm, texture and elegant brutality of Shakespeare's tragedy. Acclaimed theater director, Nonon Padilla then turns the epic classic into a modern-dress contemporary family drama, while World Stage Design Awardee Gino Gonzales establishes the dark aesthetic, settings and styles of the play.

Exciting, suspenseful and virtually violent, PETA's 'Haring Lear' retains Shakespeare's beautiful and devastating themes of the disintegration of family solidarity, running the gamut of love, madness, death and sacrifice.

'Haring Lear' features a traditional Shakespeare all-male cast helmed by theater stalwart Teroy Guzman who plays the role of the aging monarch, Haring Lear. The rest of the cast includes: Gary Lim (Regan), Nor Domingo (Goneril), Abner Delina (Cordelia), Jay Gonzaga (Edmundo), Myke Salomon (Edgardo), Jack Yabut (Gloster), Josel Reyes (Kent), George De Jesus (Oswaldo), Jeff Hernandez (Duke ng Cornualles), Renante Bustamante (Duke ng Albanya), Fredyl Hernandez (Duke ng Burgonia), Angel Moratilla (Hari ng Francia) and Ernie Cloma (Matandang Lalaki).

'Haring Lear' runs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from January 27 until March 4, 2012 at The PETA Theater Center. For tickets, contact 7256244, 4100821-22, 0917-5765400,petatheater@gmail.com, www.petatheater.com.

First Asian Gong & Bamboo Music Festival to Highlight Philippine Arts Festival

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) will hold the First Asian Festival of Gongs and Bamboo Music, as part of the Philippine Arts Festival (PAF) in celebration of the National Arts Month.

Led by Prof. Felipe de Leon Jr., NCCA chairman, the music festival will gather local and foreign gongs and bamboo ensembles for performances and workshops from February 20 to 24, 2012 in Cagayan de Oro and from February 25 to 28 in Baguio and Iloilo.

The Musicology Society of the Philippines is the principal proponent of the First Asian Festival of Gongs and Bamboo Music, which will also incorporate a conference that will explain the social and spiritual significance of the music created by the gongs and bamboo.

PAF 2012 will emphasize traditional art forms and genres as well as contemporary ones. The launching is set at the Rizal Park with a fiesta atmosphere highlighted by a kite making workshop and kite flying, as well as sumptuous samplings of the seven arts. Closing the PAF is the Ani ng Dangal awarding ceremony as well as the recognition of contemporary artists for their contributions.

PAF is held every February in celebration of the National Arts Month in pursuant to Presidential Proclamation No. 683 signed in 1991. The month-long festival is spearheaded by the NCCA, led by its chairman Felipe de Leon Jr. and OIC-executive director Adelina Suemith, with Marichu Tellano as head of the Planning, Policy Formulation, and Programming Division.

For next year’s celebration, the NCCA has taken the theme “Tradisyon at Inobasyon” (Tradition and Innovation) which aims to further advance local creativity in the arts. Eminent local and foreign artists will take part in this biggest and grandest month-long cultural gathering.

CALABARZON Film Festival 2012: Call For Entries

We are pleased to inform you that pelikuLAB-Samasining, in cooperation with UPLB Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts, is organizing PELIKUL2URA: The Calabarzon Film Festival 2012, which will be held on Feb. 22-24 at UPLB. Its first edition was held successfully last year in February also at UPLB.

In line with the second Calabarzon-wide film festival, we are now accepting entries for the short film competition, and we are inviting your institution to participate in this historic event by sending films and delegates. May we also ask for your assistance in disseminating this announcement in your institution?

The winners of the competition will receive cash prize, plaque and certificate. There is also a chance that your film submissions will be screened in NCCA’s Cinemarehiyon 2012 to be held in Bacolod City in Feb. together with films from other regions prior to the festival.

The deadline for submission of entries and delegate registration is on Dec. 31 at 11:00 pm. Due to budget constraints, we will not be able to shoulder accommodation of delegates, but we are currently raising funds to subsidize accommodation expenses.

Thrilla Manila by Tilt & Mist @ Secret Fresh

Thrilla Manila

Two-man show by Tilt and Mist

Opening : December 11, 2011 Sunday 6PM

Exhibit Duration : 11 December 2011 – 3 January 2012

Secret Fresh

Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan

It had been 36 years ago since the historic match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier for the heavyweight title that was fought long and hard at Araneta Coliseum in 1975. Dubbed Thrilla in Manila, the epic bout had the two long standing rivals fighting fiercely for the belt and earning the victor a mall named after him. The mall became a de facto landmark for a brewing underground of old skool skaters playing hooky back in the 1980s leaving skid marks on railings and concrete steps and benches with mall guards on their heels quelling in vain the harbinger of anarchic hypertext that will eventually occupy blocks of the increasingly dense metropolitan Manila. From juvenile proclamations of being to anti-authoritarian self-righteous shout-outs, they all evolved into a symbiotic interplay of skin and structure surface and interface, landscape and context, text and meta-text in a parallel development of graffiti and street art culture here in Manila. Bouts are now fought territorially, on the perennially grimy surfaces competing attention with tarp billboards and civic sponsored public art, and tags and spray painted marks fiercely creep in in the frenzy of this hypertextualized city.

December 11 Sunday at Secret Fresh marks the reunion not between ferocious rivals but between long time collaborators to the city they keep coming back to where they have left their marks. Tilt and Mist, French graffiti artists based in France had been coming to Manila since 2004. Tilt’s trademark bubble fonts and Mist’s pointy-edged vivid tags had been spread out alongside the marks of local graffiti artists in Intramuros, A. Bonificao, San Juan, Cubao and in the wherewithals of rundown walls of metropolitan Manila which had been otherwise whitewashed or plastered by campaign posters or spraypainted over by other graffiti crew. They have also been collaborating with Movement 69, a small loose collective of local street artists composed of Whoop, A.lien, Tripp 69, Exld, Egg Fiasco and Nemo.

The exhibit Thrilla Manila will be featuring Tilt’s and Mist’s paintings and giclee prints incorporating Filipino icons with their graffiti style as what Tilt had done with the Philippine flag which was formed with Filipino text written in his bubble style font in such a manner that reinforces iconographic meaning with his interspersed bubble text, while Mist’s more abstract calligraphic style is a ponderous exercise on font as an organic form evolving into figures with distinct personalities.

Tilt and Mist’s collaborations extend beyond massive wall bombings to customizing art toys and an ice cream cart specially built for their exhibit at Secret Fresh.

Tilt and Mist is mostly identified with old school style graffiti .

Mist has been in the graffiti scene since the late 1980s and was part of the graffiti crew Control of Paris in 1992. With a formal background in design and a stint at a toy company, he has also developed his own character Debilz. His style, the ‘devil style’ is characterized by big outlines, vibrant hues, horns and pointy-limbed figures. His lettering likewise exhibits the same pointy features consequently having a life of its own and becoming characters themselves. He is being represented by Galerie Le Feuvre and Speerstra gallery in Europe. And spends most of his time in Montpeliier

Tilt is an internationally recognized graffiti artist originating from Toulouse in South France. A self-declared “graffiti fetishist”, he learned the trade in the streets and on trains as a youngster. In the time since he did his first tags on a skateboard ramp back in 1988, his ensuing career has been nourished and influenced by extensive travel. Inspirational journeys have seen Tilt exhibit and leave his mark as far and wide as the USA, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand,Laos, Taiwan, China, Canada, Philippines, Indonesia, the Maldives, and throughout Europe. He designed one of the watches collaborated on by Kidrobot and Swatch which was launched this year at Secret Fresh.

Thrilla Manila will open on December 11 Sunday at 6 PM and will be on view until January 3, 2012.

Secret Fresh is at Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan, MM.
Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2 to 10PM and Sundays from 1 to 6PM.
For more information about the show you may contact 570 9815 loc 7 or email secretfreshinfo@gmail.com or check them online for updates through their website http://secretfresh.net/ or thru Facebook http://www.facebook.com/secretfresh or http://www.twitter.com/freshmanila.

Rizal in Ateneo, Ateneo in Rizal @ Ateneo Art Gallery

Rizal in Ateneo, Ateneo in Rizal, an exhibit in commemoration of Jose Rizal’s 150th birthday, will be on show until March, 2012 at the Temporary Exhibition Space of the Ateneo Art Gallery.

Curated by Dr. Ambeth Ocampo, the exhibition showcases Rizal artifacts in the Rizal Library Special Collections and the Ateneo University Archives.

Also, please take note that the Ateneo Art Gallery will be closed from 18 December 2011 to 03 January 2012 for the Christmas break.
Regular gallery and office hours will resume on 4 January 2012.

For more information you may email ijaucian@ateneo.edu or dgaring@ateneo.edu .




Level 2 Rizal Library Special Collections Building

Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City

Nick Deocampo Docus on Show

UP Film Institute is proud to present a twin-bill of Nick Deocampo’s films for its Spotlight on Docus event this December. On view at the Videotheque of UPFI Film Center in UP Diliman is the back-to-back showcase of Private Wars and The Sex Warriors and the Samurai on Dec 13 Tue and Dec 14 Wed at 2:30/4:30/6:30 p.m.

Winner of the Audience Prize at the 1997 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Private Wars is a personal chronicle of Deocampo’s search for his missing father. Produced by Formation Films for Channel 4 London in 1995 and winner of a string of awards from Film Academy of the Philippines, Tokyo’s Image Forum Festival and the Video Mondial - Brussels, The Sex Warriors and the Samurai tells a candid story of a Filipino transvestite in Japan’s entertainment center.

University of the Philippines Film Institute
UP Diliman, Quezon City
filminstitute.upd.edu.ph

Pinoy Fauvist Hits the Town with "Out of Town"

Pinoy artist Jake Catah lights up the town this December 9, 2011, 6pm with his 5th solo exhibit, “Out of Town” at the Ysobel Art Gallery, 2nd floor, The Shops at Serendra, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

Catah, 36, is a self-described Fauvist. His latest work reflects the colorful vibrancy of his favored genre but with tinges of surrealism thrown in for good measure.

“I suppose there are hints of Dali in there,” says Catah, referring to the Spanish surrealist painter. “But it’s all Filipino as far as I’m concerned. I may be influenced by western styles but my aim is to preserve Filipino culture and traditions through my artwork. It’s one of my missions as a Filipino artist - to uphold Filipino dignity.”

“Out of Town” is certainly Filipino. Its focus is the all-familiar road trip, something Pinoys can readily identify with. From twisting rides through the Philippine countryside to mind-bending airplane rides through the urban sky, Catah captures the quintessential Pinoy activity – traveling – with a deft eye and incisive heart.

“I create moments I would like to cherish,” he explains. “And I want my viewers to feel a positive outlook in life too – which is why my paintings are vividly colored and subjects are family and love. With ‘Out of Town’, however, I’m not only making feel-good moments. I’m exploring the theme of traveling and movement, whether it’s the physical experience of driving with the wind in your hair, or the spiritual change we all experience as we live and journey through life.”

Catah’s work, like the theme of his exhibit, is also evolving. “I’ve been painting for 12 years now. It’s all I do. And I’m happy for the progress and success I’ve been given. ‘Out of Town’ is probably a reflection of my own voyage as a human being, my own travels up steep hills and down winding roads. It’s a journey I’m enjoying and I hope others have as much fun experiencing my work as I have creating it.”

“Out of Town” runs from the 9th to the 22nd of December. For inquiries, please call/email 09285071117, 09332227952 or ysobelartgallery@yahoo.com.

About: Ysobel Art Gallery started last March 2011. It is home to a vast collection of art work from various established and upcoming artists. Its collection leans more towards contemporary art.

NCCA Sets the Stage for Philippine Arts Festival 2012

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ (NCCA)—the country’s prime agency for arts and culture—is gearing up for the 2012 Philippine Arts Festival (PAF), a month-long fete that will banner the flagship projects of the seven committees of the NCCA’s Subcommission on the Arts (SCA), embracing architecture, cinema, dance, literature, music, dramatic arts and visual arts.

Under its chairman, Prof. Felipe de Leon, Jr., the NCCA has taken the theme “Tradisyon at Inobasyon”(Tradition and Innovation) for next year’s celebration, which aims to further advance local creativity in the arts. PAF will feature workshops, exhibitions, forums and performances by practitioners of the arts and will take place all over the country. Eminent local and foreign artists will take part in this biggest and grandest month-long cultural gathering.

The annual celebration of National Arts Month began with the signing of Presidential Proclamation 683 in 1991, declaring February as National Arts Month. Through the years, the NCCA in partnership with various private and government agencies have organized events and activities to highlight Filipino artistic excellence and creativity.

Popular television and film icons Boy Abunda and Dingdong Dantes have lent their stellar power for the 2011 festival as NCCA Art and Youth Ambassadors, respectively. For 2012, they will be joined by Piolo Pascual as NCCA Culture Ambassador to further popularize the festival.

Next year’s PAF will emphasize the interface of traditional and contemporary art forms and genres. A festive launching is set at the Rizal Park, to be highlighted by a kite making workshop, kite flying, and sumptuous samplings of the seven arts. Closing the PAF is the Ani ng Dangal awarding ceremony that will recognize the contribution of individuals and institutions to the promotion of Filipino cultural heritage.

During the entire month of February, the public is invited to come and witness the seven arts committees present their flagship projects.

Architecture

The Committee on Architecture and Allied Arts, headed by Architect Gerard Lico, will be holding several exhibitions, conferences, lectures and competitions to mark the celebration. The exhibitions will revolve around themes and topics on the morphology of Filipino buildings, Philippine styles, the works of IP Santos, and discourses on design. These events are under the “Achi[types/texts] 2012” project. Some of the exhibits include “Salumpuwit, Bangko, Silya, Atbp.: A History of Chairs in the Philippines”; “La Vida Verde: The Landscape Architecture of National Artist IP Santos”; and “Imeldific Modernity: A Dictatorship of Style.” There will also be a design competition on architectural innovation for architecture students, as well as conferences, and lectures.

Cinema

The National Committee on Cinema, headed by Dr. Miguel Rapatan, will be holding CinemaRehiyon 4 in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental. The festival features screenings and forums that focus on the artistic endeavors in filmmaking from the regions. Dubbed as the “biggest countryside/regional film festival,” Cinemarehiyon films gathers the best and emerging filmmakers from Luzon to Mindanao. It will happen from February 8 to 11, 2011.

Dance

The National Committee on Dance, headed by Shirley Halili Cruz, will be presenting Sayaw Pinoy, the longest-running Arts Month flagship project and is considered as one of the most attended, widely-successful, and much-anticipated event. Now on its ninth year, Sayaw Pinoy will continue to spread the beauty of dance in various areas all over the country. It will be participated by top dance groups from Manila vis-à-vis the emerging groups from the regions.

Literary Arts

The National Committee on Literary Arts, headed by Dr. Priscilla Macansantos, will mount the literary arts festival Taboan in Pampanga and Baguio. Taboan 2012: Philippine International Writers Festival will gather writers and readers for panel discussions, lectures, book fair, literary readings and performances, and many more. It will happen from February 9 to 11, 2012. Taboan events in the past were held in Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao City.

Music

The National Committee on Music, headed by Prof. Felipe de Leon, Jr., will be staging the First Asian Festival of Gongs and Bamboo Music in Cagayan de Oro City, Iloilo City and Baguio City. It will gather local and foreign gongs and bamboo ensembles for performances and workshops. It will be from February 20 to 24, 2012, in Cagayan de Oro, and from February 25 to 28 in Baguio and Iloilo.

Dramatic Arts

The National Committee on Dramatic Arts, headed by Lutgardo Labad, will be holding the Tanghal 2012, focusing on community-based theater groups, in Calamba City, Cebu City, General Santos City and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It will bring the best and emerging university and community-based theater groups together for the celebration.

Visual Arts

The Committee on Visual Arts, headed by Nemesio Miranda, will be holding the Philippine International Visual Arts Festival (PIVAF) in the town of Angono, dubbed as an “Art Capital of the Philippines”. In 2012, it will have “Rizal” as theme, calling it the Philippine International Visual Arts Festival: The Rizal Experience (PVAF: TRE). Happening from February 17 to 20, 2012, PVAF: TRE will have a lineup of activities throughout the province of Rizal—conferences, exhibitions, competitions, workshops, painting sessions, scenic tours, trade expo, parades, performances and kite-flying.

NCCA’s 25th Anniversary

As the NCCA turns 25 years in 2012, expect the Philippine Arts Festival to be a grand celebration for all the artists and cultural workers in the country. Likewise, the NCCA gears for its other banner programs like theDance Xchange: Philippine International Dance Festival held every April; Taoid in celebration of National Heritage Month every May; and Dayaw every October in line with the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Month, among others. The NCCA Secretariat is headed by its OIC Executive Director Ms. Adelina Suemith, while the head of the Planning, Policy Formulation, and Programming Division (PPFPD) is Ms. Marichu Tellano.

For more details on the activities and schedules, contact PIAF Media Director and NCCA-Public Affairs and Information Office (PAIO) head, Rene Sanchez Napenas at (632) 527-2192 or 0928-5081057, or PAF Festival Manager, Vanessa Nicolas at 0918-6380412. Email us at ncca.paio@gmail.com.