Jai Shane Cañete (left) is the screenwriter while Eli Razo (right) is the director for the short film, “Panihapon”, an official entry for the CineSpectra 2019 Short Film Festival in Manila this August.| Facebook photos of Razo and Cañete
CEBU CITY, Philippines — After showing what they got in Sinulog Short Film Festival 2019, Cebuano filmmaker Eli Razo and screenwriter Jai Shane Cañete will again make the Cebuanos proud as they join an upcoming film festival in Manila.
Razo confirmed to CDN Digital during the CDN Freshtalk on June 16, Sunday, that they would be working on the short film, “Panihapon” which would be an official entry for the CineSpectra 2019 Short Film Festival this August.
“It will be a five-minute short film about HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) awareness,” Razo said.
There were 100 entries across the country submitted for the film festival and only 10 short films made the cut.
Razo also confirmed that “Panihapon” is the lone short film from the Visayas that would be part of the first-ever CineSpectra 2019 Short Film Festival.
This is organized by the EON Foundation, Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), LOVE YOURSELF, and Directors’ Guild of the Philippines, Inc. (DGPI).
Read more: LoveYourself brings ‘safe space’ to Cebu
According to FDCP’s official Facebook page, the film festival is “a vehicle to foster a deeper, human rights-based understanding of HIV/AIDS”
This will be “a wider public appreciation of this epidemic not just as a public health issue, but in the context of the greater human experience, through film or A/V production short films as well as to consistently foster film appreciation and film screening programs for audience development.”
Read more: ‘Usa Ka Libo’ wins Best Short Film in Sinulog Short Film festival
Just like the award-winning Sinulog Short Film Festival 2019 “Usa Ka Libo,” Razo will direct “Panihapon” while Cañete will be in charge of the screenplay.
In a message sent to CDN Digital, Cañete said that the concept of “Panihapon,” which is the English word for dinner, would serve as a gathering and a keeping or bonding of one another.
“It is during dinner that we talk (of) some important things or confess something,” he said.
The audience will also expect different kinds of food as symbolism for the transmission of the disease.
Among the symbolism is the turning of red fresh blood into dinuguan (pork blood stew) which symbolizes infection.
“I wanted the dramatic intention to also radiate from the the the preparation of these food to the dinner itself, and how this “Panihapon” changes the life of an HIV patient, and how the society dine-in to accept the disease and stop the stigma,” Cañete said. /dbs