By Chito Chavez
With the completion of two major local film festivals for this year’s “Buwan ng Wika”, Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte has further sought to enhance the film industry tourism in the city through its own international film festival and other programs.
Quezon City Vice-Mayor Joy Belmonte (Mark Balmores)
“Quezon City is promoting itself through another rich form of tourism and this is cinema tourism. That’s why we the Quezon City international film festival,” said Belmonte.
Dubbed the QCinema International Film Festival, the city-wide film festival follows the footsteps of other local film showcases such as the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino, which were both held this August.
QCinema features competing entries from up-and-coming independent filmmakers, shorts, international feature films, and digitally-remastered Filipino classics.
This year, QCinema 2018 will be held from October 21-30, 2018.
“We have succeeded in putting this film festival in the film tourism circuit so, those who are interested in cinema, they go to Busan in Korea in early October and they come to Quezon City for the Quezon City international film festival in mid-October and then they go to Tokyo for the Tokyo international film festival,” the vice mayor shared.
“We’re the only city that has an international film festival, and we’re now on our 6thyear,’’ she added.
Belmonte explained that QCinema has now expanded to feature restaurants, hotels, and other tourism endeavors as part of its ten-day itinerary.
In partnership with the Department of Tourism (DOT), QCinema will also be promoted as part of the various attractions for guests from overseas.
Belmonte had also earlier said that city council is mulling an ordinance to require cinemas to feature Filipino films for one week during the “Buwan ng Wika” in August.
The city showed its support for the 2ndPista ng Pelikulang Pilipino held from August 15-21 by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) to cement its commitment to helping local filmmakers.