This Week @ Cinekatipunan (June 25-30, 2007)

Cinekatipunan This Week: Cuban Docu, Cinekalikasan, Experimental Shorts, Kidlat De Guia, Elvert Banares

THIS WEEK AT CINEKATIPUNAN
June 25 to 30, 2007

This week, Cinekatipunan forays into Latin American
works with its Cuban program on Monday, June 25. The
Cuban fim program features the documentary Mission
Against Terror, an indictment of the war on terror
being unleashed by covert elements from the United
States against people's fighting for sovereignty and
freedom from terror. The film is to be presented by
Amistad Philippine-Cuban Friendship Association.

Tuesday's environmental film program, Cinekalikasan sa
Cinekatipunan, will feature short works on the Pasig
river and the people's right to water by campus-based
filmmakers and a video-documentary produced by IBON
Foundation.

A Midsummer's Night of Dreams, June 27's marathon
screening of experimental films, will feature works by
around twelve filmmakers, including Sherad Sanchez,
Claudia Staerk, Vivian Limpin,
Donal Foreman, Moshe & Katrin, Jasmine Nadua Trice,
Nerissa Picadizo, Khavn Dela Cruz, Kiri Dalena,
Emmanuel Dela Cruz, Jane Osborne, and Tessa de
Guzman. The program is being curated by
Afghan-American filmmaker Waise Azimi. The program
precedes mag:net's acoustic night at 7 pm, making
Wednesday a non-stop night of film and good music.
Kidlat de Guia show his works on Thursday.

Capping the weekday is the world premiere of the short
film Nykto by Elvert de la Cruz Bañares is on the
Friday, June 29, program. Nykto will be shown
alongside four other selected works by the filmmaker
in the eXtermination3.

Held Mondays to Saturdays at Mag:net Café
Katipunan,Cinekatip unan screenings start at 5:00 PM.
While the film screenings are free, viewers are
encouraged to make voluntary contributions for the
honoraria of the featured filmmakers. For questions or
comments about Cinekatipunan write to
sinag_haraya@yahoo.com.

Cinekatipunan programs precede Mag:net Café's nightly
holding of Live Performances by well-known and
emerging bands and musicians. Mag:net Café is located
along Katipunan Avenue (fronting Miriam and Ateneo) in
Quezon City. For more inquiries please call 9293191 or
visit www.magnet.com.ph.

PROGRAM

June 25 (Monday)
Cuban Film Program
Bernie Dwyer and Roberto Ruiz Rebo: MISSION AGAINST
TERROR
To be presented by the Philippine-Cuban Friendship
Association (Amistad-Philippine s)

Mission Against Terror
48 mins | Documentary

Five Cuban men are in prison for being anti-terrorists
in the country that declared war against terror.

Cuba has every right to protect its country and people
from ultra-right groups in Miami that have killed
scores in their island right under the US government’s
nose. So were known terrorists at large in Miami
monitored by Cuban patriots, who also passed
information to US authorities. Could there have been a
mix up? Instead of the terrorists, the anti-terrorists
were abducted and locked up.

The Cuban Five (Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino,
Fernando González, René González and Antonio Guerrero)
were illegally held in US jails since 1998 and denied
family visits and bail after almost two years of being
in solitary confinement. Lawyer Leonard Weinglass
calls this case a political one, and a “violation”
from the start.

“Mission Against Terror” maps Cuba ’s 48-year struggle
against terrorism and the clamor for the freedom of
Cuban 5. Its use of historic footage and interviews
with experts and families of the accused make moving
portraits of the Cuban patriots and elusive justice in
the US .

Bernie Dwyer and Roberto Ruiz collaborated on this
critically acclaimed Irish-Cuban documentary that
debuted at Havana ’s 26th Festival of New Latin
American Cinema in December 2004.

Following the film, former political prisoner and
member of the FREE THE CUBAN FIVE Committee of Amistad
(Philippines- Cuba Friendship Association) Donato
Continente will present on the issue and inform on how
individuals can become involved. Cuban Ambassador
H.E.Jorge Rey Jimenez is also invited to give his
remarks.

June 26 (Tuesday)
Sinekalikasan Program

This third screening of environmental films will
feature two works on the state of the Pasig River by
students of the University of the Philippines College
of Mass Communications (UP CMC) and a
video-documentary on the people's right to water by
socio-economic think tank IBON Foundation.

Kilometro Bente Siyete: Industriya sa Basura at Suba
(2007| 21 mins)
A student documentary on the effects of toxic heavy
metals on the health of the community and the
environment along Pasig river. [Likang Likas
Productions]

Tabing-Ilog (Riverside)
(2007| 11 mins)
A student documentary feature on the everyday lives of
the communities and workers along the Pasig River as
they strive to live a normal life despite the degree
of waste dumping and pollution in the area. [Elephant
Child Productions]

Tubig: Buhay o Tubo? (Water: Life or Profit?)
(2006|Digital video|14 mins)
The right to water is the right to life. Water should
be used for meeting people's needs—for their
livelihood and for their daily use. But government
denies farmers and fisherfolk of water for livelihood
in favor of the interests of big private and foreign
investors' use of the nation's water resources.
[Directed by Miles Quero Asa, Philomel Buena and EJ
Mijares | Written by Hilda Rosca Nartea and Miles
Quero Asa | Produced by IBON Foundation Inc.]

June 27 (Wednesday)
A Midsummers Night of Dreams: Experimental films
curated by WAISE AZIMI
Featuring
Sherad Sanchez - Iyak Ni Maria (7 minutes)
Claudia Staerk – Iceland (20 minutes)
Vivian Limpin – Silig (5 minutes) Kunyang (20 minutes)

Donal Foreman – Under (2 minutes) When I Was 18 (8
minutes) Film By The Sea (3 minutes)
wsh (3 minutes) -
Moshe & Katrin - Mga Bagay na May Pakpak (20 minutes)
Jasmine Nadua Trice
Nerissa Picadizo – Stressful X (20 minutes)
Khavn Dela Cruz – Our Daily Bread (?) Literature (10
minutes)
Kiri Dalena – Red Saga (20 minutes)
Emmanuel Dela Cruz – Imagining Edsa (5 minutes)
Tatlong Lamok (9 minutes)
Jane Osborne – Drive (15 minutes)
Tessa de Guzman - The Perfect Couple (1 minute/30
seconds)

Waise Azimi graduated from Bard College in 2005 with a
degree in sociology. In 2003, Waise Azimi shot a
documentary titled: Afghanistan After, about how life
has changed two years after the fall of the Taliban.
Most recently he is working on the post-production of
documentary that covered the training of a young group
of Afghan recruits as they struggled through the
Afghan National Army's training program at the Kabul
Military Training Center. Waise Azimi has grown up in
Manila and loves the city and its people.

June 28 (Thursday)
Works by KIDLAT DE GUIA

June 29 (Friday)
eXtermination3: selected films by Elvert de la Cruz
Bañares

Ang Bayan Kong Payapa [My Peaceful Country]
(4 min)
This is the state of the nation cycle. (Originally, a
2-channel video installation for a CCP-exhibit
organized by TutoK Karapatan), the work was re-edited
for normal screening pleasures.)

astrangiam
(7min)
Mind over matter. Perception over fact. Life over
death. Shot in Casio Exilim EX-53 still camera,
'astrangiam' meditates on the parallelisms of time,
spontaneity, assumptions, dreams and elements of
nature.

Sukdulan Ng Pagrahuyo sa Dambana ng Sirenang Walang
Ulo
[The Zenith of Seduction at the Altar of the Headless
Mermaind]
(12 min)
Poetry on video tackling themes of innocence, vices
and self-destruction. Shot in 1993 and re-constructed
in 2006.

Itiwarik: Talu-saling Batas [Invert: The Temperamental
Law]
(7 min)
A student piece (way back in 1994) exorcising (and
criticizing) the relationship between man and society.
Is man living up to the decays of society or is he
poised to discover that he himself is the destroyer of
his path?

Nykto
(12 min)
Emptiness can be an equation of one's search for
better beginnings. It seems that one of the basic
wonders of life is to enter dark tunnels to be able to
separate the hypothetical from the not. A loose
adaptation of the poem "Darkness" by Arris Rivera.
* World Premiere

Elvert de la Cruz Bañares is a filmmaker, curator,
educator and multi-media artist. His films have been
screened in underground film festivals in the United
States, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Japan. He
curated first time Filipino programs for the
'Queerfest: Vancouver Gay & Lesbian Film Festival' and
the 'Antimatter Underground Film & Video Festival' in
Victoria, Canada. He has, by far, written, produced
and directed 43 shorts (he calls them his "little
low-budget films"). "Gemini" is the only Filipino Film
in Official Selection at the Antimatter Underground
Film Festival 2004 in Canada and was presented as an
installation at the Daejon Museum of Art in South
Korea in 2005. Twice he was sent as Philippine
Delegate to Filipino film festivals in China
(Beijing'05 and Shanghai'06) . He is currently
finishing his two full-length films, 'Alipo-op Sa
Animo' (Fog In The Consciousness) and 'The Atomika
Settlement: Devastation Canvas # 5'. He is the
festival director of eKsperim[E]nto Festival of Film,
Video & New Media and the 2006 ASEAN Film Festival (at
The Podium).

June 30 (Saturday)
TO BE ANNOUNCED