During the recently concluded 2nd Viddsee Juree Awards Philippines, the Cinematheque teemed with young men and women filmmakers, eager to share their slices and visions of life, captured on camera, presented as short films in Viddsee.
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The Viddsee Juree Awards celebrated the entertainment industry’s picks of Asian short films from all genres: fiction, documentary, and animation. The Viddsee Juree Awards Philippines 2018, stories were picked from the brightest talents and upcoming filmmakers, and judged by a panel of international judges and showcased online. Juree is part of Viddsee’s commitment to celebrate and support filmmakers and film communities in Asia.
Ruelo Zendo’s Divine XY emerged this year’s gold victor. Ben Thompson’s citation: “In this film, we are introduced to a wonderful character who guides us through her story with both humor and heart. We were particularly impressed by the filmmaker’s strong and unique voice and how they were able to demonstrate so poignantly that something as small as a single letter on a form can have such a dramatic effect on a person’s life. We commend both the filmmaker and actress for their bravery and vision in exploring this story and are delighted to award Divine XY with the Gold Jury Prize.”
“The film is message for people across the oceans to be open to other possibilities and accept the change that could affect our lives,” declared Zendo. “I was inspired to do it after watching Divine Aucina’s physicality and comedic acting, and wrote the script around her talents.”
Zendo was an alumnus of the Mowelfund Film Institute, most of his films were grant recipients from art and media institutions. Ruelo previously worked as a director for notable television documentaries. Currently, he is a resident artist at Casa San Miguel, Zambales and works as a director for film, television and video.
Christian Rae Villanueva’s The Lessons of the Night took home the silver award.
Villanueva’s inspiration to become a director came after watching Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1at the age of seven. He made his childhood ambitions come true after enrolling at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB). His silver-winning short film was his capstone project for the college.
Christian said, “This film is a love letter to all single mothers. I grew up with a single mom, so I wanted my film to be about my mother, but of course, exaggerated it. The actors learned a lot from the films I liked, especially Two Days, One Night by the Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne) that also inspired this film.”
Zendo (Gold) and Villanueva (Silver) were awarded film production grants worth P160,000 and P80,000 respectively, along with audio equipment provided by RØDE Microphones. The Gold winner also won a five-day Global Film & TV Program in Los Angeles sponsored by the Motion Picture Association. All ten finalists received a 12-month Creative Cloud All Apps subscription worth US$560 each from Adobe.
Zendo and Villanueva, young filmmakers whose dreams are now realities and are already part of Philippine entertainment history. Because of these young film Jedis, we are assured that a new hope springs for Philippine cinema.