Global Standards, Local Stories: FDCP x FEST Film Lab 2025 Elevates Filipino Filmmakers with World-Class Mentorship

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In a powerful convergence of global talent and local passion, the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) in collaboration with FEST Film Lab hosted a transformative week-long filmmaking workshop from July 12 to 17, 2025, igniting a new wave of creative energy in the Philippine film industry.

Dubbed FDCP x FEST Film Lab 2025, the intensive program brought some of the world’s most celebrated film experts to Philippine shores—Oscar nominees, Emmy and BAFTA award-winners, and pioneers in sound and casting—all to equip emerging Filipino filmmakers with the skills, insight, and confidence needed to compete on the global stage.

A Bold Beginning: Challenging Comfort Zones

The program opened with a powerful message from FDCP Chairperson and CEO Jose Javier Reyes, who called on participants to push past creative boundaries and elevate Filipino storytelling to match, and even surpass, global standards. “You are not here just to learn—you are here to transform. Let us challenge mediocrity and reimagine Filipino cinema,” Reyes declared.

FEST Film Lab Head Filipe Pereira underscored this mission with a heartfelt welcome, emphasizing inclusivity and connection. “This is about bridging cultures, industries, and generations through the language of film,” he said.

And indeed, what followed was not just a series of lectures or rehearsals—it was an immersion into the very soul of filmmaking.

Mastering the Craft: A Close-Up on the Workshops

Film Editing participants were thrust into the editorial mind of Alex Rodriguez, Oscar-nominated editor of Y Tu Mamá También and Children of Men. Rodriguez broke down scenes from the visceral action film Mosul (2019), challenging attendees to understand the invisible rhythm of storytelling—how cuts can evoke emotion, heighten tension, and build logic in chaos. “Editing,” Rodriguez shared, “is where you rewrite your film with time.”

Actors and casting hopefuls were immersed in real-time performances and critiques under the tutelage of Nancy Bishop, a CSA Artios Award-winning casting director. Scene work, taped auditions, and personalized feedback formed the backbone of her class. Bishop also dove into the archetypes that define film characters, empowering actors to interpret roles with greater clarity and authenticity.

In Production Design, two legends—BAFTA winner Andrew McAlpine (The Piano) and Emmy awardee Gemma Jackson (Game of Thrones, John Adams)—opened their sketchbooks and storyboards. They shared concept art from iconic works, dissected scenes, and emphasized the emotional power of space, color, and texture. Participants didn’t just learn how to design a set—they were taught how to build entire worlds.

The Sound Design workshop was a masterclass in sonic storytelling, led by Oscar-winning sound mixer Mark Ulano (Titanic) and sound pioneer Patrushkha Mierzwa, one of Hollywood’s first female boom operators. They highlighted the crucial, yet often overlooked, collaboration between audio, cinematography, and direction. From mic placement to capturing intimacy in chaos, their insights echoed a resounding truth: without sound, there is no cinema.

And in the Film Financing and Producing workshop, industry veteran Paul Miller laid out the hard truths of production economics. From the power of intellectual property to test screenings and international distribution, Miller’s session opened the curtain on the business side of art. “Every film is a risk,” he warned, “but an educated risk can be revolutionary.”

Sharing the Spotlight: Collaboration over Competition

Among the participants was Cinemalaya winner Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan, known for her 2022 film Blue Room. She expressed her gratitude not only for the mentors’ insights but also for the camaraderie that formed among fellow Filipino creatives.

“I came with friends but left with collaborators,” she said. “We weren’t just learning from the experts—we were learning from each other. That’s what made this lab unforgettable.”

Behind the Scenes: Exclusive Media Q&A

Media partners, including Wazzup Pilipinas, were given rare access to the mentors in a closed-door Q&A. The exchange offered a deeper glimpse into their experience working with Filipino artists.

“There is something raw and fearless in the way Filipino filmmakers approach storytelling,” said McAlpine. “It’s honest, bold, and rooted in community. That’s a powerful foundation to build upon.”

Jackson agreed: “The Philippines is brimming with creative energy. All it needs is the infrastructure and confidence to break into the world stage.”

A Legacy in the Making

By the end of the program, one thing was clear: FDCP x FEST Film Lab 2025 was not just a workshop—it was a call to arms. A declaration that the Philippines is ready, more than ever, to tell its stories with the depth, polish, and authenticity the world deserves to see.

This initiative marks a pivotal step toward empowering Filipino filmmakers with tools not just for artistic expression, but for sustainable careers. Through shared passion, world-class mentorship, and a clear vision, the next generation of Filipino storytellers is now equipped to break barriers, challenge narratives, and redefine what it means to create for a global audience.

And if this is just the beginning—cinema’s future in the Philippines is brighter than ever.

Starvation as a Weapon: Gaza's Children and Mothers Face Death While the World Watches

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Gaza is starving — and the silence from the world’s most powerful nations is deafening. The numbers are no longer just statistics. They are the hollowed cheeks of children, the sunken eyes of mothers, and the faint, shivering bodies of healthcare workers now forced to choose between saving lives or fighting to survive themselves.

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières / MSF) has raised a harrowing alarm: one in four children under five and pregnant or breastfeeding women in Gaza are now malnourished. At MSF’s Gaza City clinic alone, the number of those treated for malnutrition has quadrupled since mid-May. In just the last two weeks, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have tripled.

This is not the result of natural famine or logistical error. This is the calculated weaponization of hunger.

“This is not just hunger – it’s deliberate starvation,” says Caroline Willemen, MSF project coordinator in Gaza City. “We are enrolling 25 new patients every single day for malnutrition. We see the exhaustion and the hunger in our own colleagues.”

A War on the Most Vulnerable

In a clinic overwhelmed with starving patients, Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF’s deputy medical coordinator, not only treats the malnourished — he feels it in his own weakening body. Doctors, nurses, and aid workers are skipping meals, surviving on scraps, while they treat victims who are far worse off. Infants cry not from pain but from emptiness. Mothers faint mid-sentence. And children, some barely able to walk, are fading before they can speak.

Despite these atrocities, the international response has been meager — symbolic airdrops of food that fall tragically short of the actual need. Even these attempts are met with bloodshed.

The Israeli military has turned food lines into death traps. Distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — an Israeli-sanctioned and US-backed proxy — have become hunting grounds. People lining up for aid risk not just going home empty-handed but never going home at all.

“These are not humanitarian operations. They are war crimes disguised with compassion,” Dr. Mughaisib says. “Those who go to GHF’s food distributions know they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”

Flour for Bullets

The recent massacre at Sheikh Radwan clinic paints the grisliest picture yet. As desperate civilians approached trucks carrying flour, Israeli forces opened fire. MSF and Ministry of Health teams treated 122 people with gunshot wounds that day. Forty-six were dead on arrival.

Let that sink in: they died waiting for flour.

“This is genocide unfolding before our eyes,” says Amande Bazerolle, MSF’s head of emergency response. “Any shred of humanity in Doctors Without Borders has been wiped out in the ongoing slaughter.”

Over 1,000 civilians have been killed and more than 7,200 injured in the past two months, many of them during attempts to access food and aid. The targets include women, children, the elderly — none are spared.

Rice Once a Day, If You're Lucky

The starvation is systemic. Community kitchens, once a vital lifeline for hospitals and clinics, have shut down or now manage to serve one meal of plain rice per day — hardly enough for patients recovering from injury or infection. Medical staff, too, often go without.

This is no longer about financial hardship or conflict-disrupted supply chains. It’s about the deliberate restriction and denial of food, used as a tool of war against an entire civilian population.

Gaza’s food supply has been reduced to near extinction, leaving nearly 2 million people in survival mode. MSF’s frontline health workers — some of the last remaining symbols of hope — are exhausted, starved, and increasingly broken.

This Must End — Now

The forced starvation of Gaza is a war crime. There is no gray area. The Geneva Conventions prohibit the use of starvation as a method of warfare. The international community, especially those funding and arming Israel, must be held accountable.

To allow this to continue is to be complicit.

Airdrops of rice and flour are not a solution. They are a distraction. Gaza needs unrestricted humanitarian access, a ceasefire, and a full restoration of life-saving aid — not symbolic gestures amid genocide.

If food is life, then starvation is murder. And in Gaza, that murder is happening in broad daylight.

Ross Flores Del Rosario, founder of Wazzup Pilipinas, calls on every journalist, every global citizen, and every leader of conscience: Do not look away. Do not accept starvation as strategy. Demand an end to this inhumanity.

Banned Leaded Paints Proliferate Online Despite Internet Transactions Act in Effect

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(EcoWaste Coalition urges online shopping giants to conduct “house cleaning” to rid their platforms of prohibited goods)

28 July 2025, Quezon City. Despite the full enforcement last June 20 of Republic Act No. 11967, or the Internet Transactions Act, online shopping giants have yet to conduct "house cleaning" to ensure that prohibited products such as imported lead-containing paints are no longer advertised, promoted and traded using their platforms, the EcoWaste Coalition said.

The environmental watchdog group expressed utter dismay over the unrelenting sale in major e-commerce sites of imported paints with high levels of lead, a neurotoxic and endocrine disruptor banned in the production of paint, in gross violation of the law.

The importation, distribution and sale of such leaded paints, spray paints for consumer use in particular, makes a mockery of the DENR-issued Chemical Control Order (CCO) banning lead paints implemented by the local paint industry, the group pointed out.

The ban covers all types of paints and similar surface coatings, including those manufactured abroad and sold in the domestic market, with lead content in excess of 90 parts per million (ppm).

 

To demonstrate the problem, the group purchased assorted spray paints from online sellers at Lazada and Shopee for P40 to P105 each and had them screened for lead with the aid of an X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzer. The products, mostly made in China and Thailand, were ordered between July 15 to 24.

Of the 23 paints purchased, 14 screened positive for lead content ranging from 850 to 81,700 ppm in defiance to the 90 ppm maximum limit. Among those analyzed to contain lead were three anti-corrosive or anti-rust primers. None of these leaded paints were manufactured or distributed by member companies of the Philippine Paint & Coatings Association, Inc., an advocate for the successful industry-wide transition to non-lead paint manufacturing.

As per XRF screening, the following paint brands have one or more colors containing violative levels of lead:

Boston Spray Paint: anti-rust substrate gray (850 ppm)

Collrfia Spray Paint: orange red (1,602 ppm)

Colorz Chisai Spray Paint: metal gray (1,967 ppm), orange red (11,410 ppm), anti-rust brown (13,240 ppm), and canary yellow (31,200 ppm)

Colorz Spray Paint: flash red (983 ppm), jade green (19,340 ppm), and medium yellow (37,800 ppm)

King Sfon Spray Paint: leaf green (38,210 ppm)

Koby Spray Paint: forest green (81,700 ppm)

Nikko Spray Paint: anti-rust primer red (4,541 ppm)

Tiger Spray Paint: orange (16,130 ppm)

Yatibay Spray Paint: blackish green (11,850 ppm)

The EcoWaste Coalition clarified that the above paint brands have other colors with lead content as previously verified through laboratory tests contracted by the group, specifically Boston Spray Paint (orange red); Collrfia Spray Paint (light green, art yellow): Colorz Chisai Spray Paint (canary yellow, orange yellow), Colorz Spray Paint (fresh green, lemon yellow); King Sfon Spray Paint (cream, gold, orange, orange red, silver red, lemon yellow, orange yellow, yellow); Koby Spray Paint (fresh green, deep red, Mars red, orange red, Suzuki red, deep yellow, medium yellow), Nikko Spray Paint (wool beige, army green, dark green, grass green, leaf green, green, orange red, light yellow, medium yellow, yellow); Tiger Spray Paint (bright red, grass green, lemon yellow); and Yatibay Spray Paint (grass green, refrigerator green, deep yellow, Isuzu desert yellow, lemon yellow).

To stop the illegal trade, which poses a public health threat, the EcoWaste Coalition reiterated the urgent need to take down online product listings for lead-containing paints, block and penalize non-compliant sellers, and hold e-commerce sites liable if they fail to act to stop the illegal trade and protect the consumer interest in line with RA 11967.

The group also repeated its call on the government to nominate lead chromates for listing in the Rotterdam Convention to control the global trade of this common lead-based pigments and paints containing them. To date, three countries (Cameroon, Morocco and Switzerland) have nominated lead chromates for listing under the treaty’s Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure.