Philippine cinema is everywhere.
It’s not true that we don’t produce movies anymore.
As a matter of fact, we have lots of films to watch but the problem is the scarcity of the audience.
One of the best things to do to look for other markets (read: moviegoers) is to export films particularly to international film festivals.
Although it’s not an easy or simple task to sell Filipino film overseas, there are many ways to skin the cat.
One of them is a film market.
This is what Liza Diño-Seguerra is doing as what she has learned from her stint as the former chairperson of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP).
Liza has just visited the 2023 Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in Busan, South Korea. No, she wasn’t alone.
Liza was with the delegation of Filipinos who represented the Quezon City International Film Festival composed also of Manet Rayrit, Ed Lejano, Ronald Arguelles, among others. As part of marketing the productions of the QCIFF, the Philippines hosted the QCinema BBQ Night where many film artists from all over the world attended. It is also an introduction of QCinema to the Southeast Asian film market.
According to Liza, she remembered that in 2016, there was only a 9 square-meter of a Philippine booth at the Asian Contents and Film Market and less than twenty delegates. “Based on Park Sungho’s post, more than 100 delegates are here in Busan,” she said.
Busan was fun. “…Connecting and reconnecting with peers and colleagues on my first two nights here in Busan—there’s a lot of hugging, laughing, eating, drinking, even a bit of singing in between as we all try to catch up with each other’s lives. I can never stress enough how important these are to thrive. Global industry is a relationship-based industry. You gotta humble yourself, SHOW UP and go out of your way to genuinely engage and make meaningful connections,” described Diño-Seguerra.
Before Busan, Liza, together with her husband Ice Seguerra were at the 2023 San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain.
The Seguerras were there to collaborate with the screening of “Last Shadow at First Light,” a co-production among Philippines, Slovenia, Singapore, Japan and Indonesia directed by Nicole Midori Woodford.
In San Sebastian, Liza interacted with multinational filmmakers.
Aside from the film business, Diño-Seguerra also paid Spain flamenco studios because he is a certified flamenco dancer.
During the San Sebastian, Bilbao and Madrid trips, Ice was a wonderful travel buddy of his wife who also cooked for themselves.
“It does take a village to make a film,” exclaimed Liza who has learned to embrace the transnationalism and internationalism of filmmaking.
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