U.S. Embassy was happily sent the request if we can host the screening. They were glad to have partnered with us and prioritise IAFT Cebu for the said documentary.

The students were able to learn more not just about the documentary but more about the filmmaking life.

Dana Nachman also shared her experience in submitting her film to more than a hundred film festival and half of them rejected her film. She mentioned to the IAFT Cebu Students to prepare themselves in a competitive world of Film Industry or at least, be comfortable of being rejected.

Nachman shared tons of views and tips about the film production and how she came up with the story and the whole documentary movie making process. She was able to tour around the campus and saw a bunch of Alumni films which she was really impressed.

Last July 14 and August 11, IAFT Cebu had another Open House. It was filled with one of the most energetic crowd.

Participants got a chance to experience not just our school but we had a free demo class with our filmmaking, Acting, and 3D Animation programs.

Everyone who joined certainly love the mini classes they had with Acting, 3D Animation, Screenwriting, Green Screen Production, or Cinematography.

Here’s a quick look of what happened last Open house.

Before we start the demo class, participants will get a chance to tour our facilities and get to know more about the equipment.

IAFT Cebu will have 2 (two) Open Houses events every term. Our Open Houses events will give possible students and their families an idea of what we offer here in our film and media academy. We just don’t focus on film directing, digital filmmaking, or how to make movies, we offer wide knowledge on film editing, film production, and all things you need to learn in filmmaking. We also offer 3D Animation and all the aspects of it. We have an Acting Program where IAFT Cebu is covering all necessary techniques in Acting.

Acting
Participants got a chance to act in front of a screen and had an acting exercise. Our Senior Acting Mentor shares his techniques of being a professional actor both in American and European films, television programs and theater.

Filmmaking
In every movie, it always starts with a story, participants will have a chance to widen their imagination and know more of the introduction of screenwriting. Also, together with the 3D Animation, the participants will experience the green screen.

3D Animation
Whether you have a background in 3D Animation or do not have any, participants will have their own works. The techniques will be discussed and an exercise will be given. They will get a chance to make what they usually see in the movies.

In IAFT, we’ll help you turn your passion into a career.

*Some photos are grabbed by the SACS-Theater guild FB page.*

Cinemalaya is one of the Philippines most anticipated and the biggest Film Festival. Every year, they promote exciting and interesting films. They ended their festival last August 13, Sunday with their annual awards night held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).

and Best Cinematography for the film “Baconaua”.

-photo grabbed from HighTide FB page.

How was your learning experience in IAFT Cebu?

I had a wonderful experience learning from the industry professionals who taught at IAFT when I was enrolled. It was more about learning through practice, and so I got to be involved in a lot of projects, which gave me enough experience to get into the film and video production industries pretty easily right after graduation.

What were the best memories you have of IAFT?

Some of my best memories from IAFT are when there are when I get to be involved in out-of-town student productions. Mactan Cebu is a beautiful place, but it is also surrounded by a lot of other beautiful places like Bacolod, Iloilo, Bohol and Dumaguete, and it’s always an adventure when an opportunity presents itself to visit another part of the Philippines with your fellow film classmates.

Any current projects?

I am working on my fourth World War II documentary film set to release at the end of this year, as well as a few other smaller projects, including an animated short film and a virtual reality short film. All of these projects are to raise awareness of the unknown heroes of World War II in the Philippines.

The Documentary film will be set to screened to some places in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Recently, they had a screening in Davao, Philippines. Bani is planning to make more films and this time, it will be focusing about Filipino Heroes. He wants to send important story of some of the bravest Filipinos to the youth.

Bani Logroño

How was your learning experience in IAFT Cebu?

One of the most important parts of IAFT life was to hang around very passionate people who also had this same dream and ideas about creating films and theater.

Living on the campus, sleeping, eating, hanging out, chilling by the pool, constantly with each other in a constant dialogue about what we could create in school, it was like a bank filled with creativity. Most of our ideas were really shit and we made so much crap in IAFT. Probably one out of 100 ideas turned out to be something good. But we did it, we took risks, tried silly characters, played around, tested each other’s limits, and that’s the learning process, that’s how we developed our skills and which the school allowed us to.

Another great thing with the school was our teacher Alex Murphy. He is great in many ways but maybe mostly, because he knows good writing. When we did our performance nights, we were handed good writing even tho we didn’t know it ourselves back then. We did not know how to separate good writing from bad, so we were lucky to have Alex there doing that for us. This is essential for an actor starting out, to get our hands on good play material. Alex taught me to honor the writer, and I had so much use for that in my career.

What were the best memories you have of IAFT?

My best memories are the performance nights, all of them. Those nights taught us, the hard way, how to interact with a real audience. They say that the audience will teach you everything you need to know. And I began to understand that there. Sometimes it felt like riding on a wave, when you can feel in your whole body that the audience is with you, and they will react to your every move or spoken word, then you know they are constantly listening to a story being told and not an actor performing, that feeling is addictive because it is so great. And there were also nights where we could feel that the audience really wasn’t in the scene, just watching actors performing and a not real life character. Probably because we didn’t move them enough that night, so that was bad acting and just as an important learning experience as when our performances turned out good. Learning the hard way!!

Any current projects?

I just finished shooting a short film, directed by a Swedish, Colombian director named Hernan Quintero, staring me in the lead role, produced by the company Casa Luego in Sweden. Earlier this year I also did a supporting in a role in the feature film named Finding Alice. I did a lead role in a project called Pleasure where I played a transsexual prostitute, for the movie Pleasure,  it was a short film that screened at Cannes a couple of weeks ago.

But the most important for this year will be the feature film TILT that I shot in Manila last year. Starring me and Mercedes Cabral in the leading roles. I went a couple of times to another city in Sweden this year called Gothenburgh to record some additional post sound for the film together with director Samir Arabzadeh. The film is finally done this week after a year of work with editing, color grading and so forth. Our producer Bianca Balbuena made sure to send our film to Venice Film Fest. They will let us know if we get accepted early next month. If we do get accepted, that is a huge success.