This November 15, Saturday, 1pm in QC, Free Expression Philippines, a group of filmmakers and artists will meet to redraft the pending MTRCB Reorganization Bill in the 13th Congress, with the end to refile it this 14th Congress. PD 1986, which created the MTRCB, is an anachronistic law which stifles the filmmaker's basic right and duty: to express and tell the TRUTH.

Just in case you read the article at PinoyFilm.com and were left wondering why it disappeared.

First published at my Multiply blog.

Recently, filmmaker Lav Diaz's film 'Death in the Land of Encantos' suffered the same fate as the Cannes Festival-honored Filipino film 'Serbis' in the hands of the MTRCB -- it was X'd. Many, like filmmaker JP Carpio in his Multiply blog, took the MTRCB to task for the injustice of this act.

Short Takes:

Dante Dizon has created a blog dedicated to convincing Martin Scorcese to come over to Manila for this year's Cinemanila Film Festival.

The second part of Timmy Magalang's interview with JP Carpio about digital filmmaking appeared in today's issue of Manila Bulletin (August 6, 2008) in Timmy's column Tech 101, and Timmy has just granted me permission to post the entire interview.

1. What's the difference between digital filmmaking and "conventional" filmmaking?

There is more than one aspect to tackle when answering this question. 

Look for the first part of Timmy Magalang's interview of JP Carpio on digital filmmaking in today's -- July 30, 2008 -- issue of Manila Bulletin, Tech Section; Timmy's column is called Tech 101. The interview might also be posted online at Manila Bulletin's website tomorrow. 

JP already forwarded me a copy (I hooked JP and Timmy up) and he did a great job explaining the ins and outs of digital filmmaking.

I'm mad.

I would like to congratulate one of our scriptwriting and filmmaking mentors, Armando 'Bing' Lao, and company, for their movie 'Serbis' which got into the Competition Category of the ongoing 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Bing is the screenwriter of this feature helmed by Director Dante 'Brillante' Mendoza.

Just learned from my Iriga City kababayan Marivic Greenberg that CutCaster.com recently had its alpha launch. (Marivic is part of CutCaster's marketing team.) From its front page:

Last month, June 17, 2007, I, together with seven other students, graduated from Armando 'Bing' Lao's Advanced Scriptwriting Class held by the University of the Philippines Film Institute (UPFI). For six weeks starting, April 28, every Saturday and Sunday from 1pm to 6pm, we sweated it out, learning Bing's new methods and writing and submitting exercises in the hope that these lessons would make us better scriptwriters.