3rd Adolescent Health Film Festival slated

Davao City, Philippines — The Commission on Population (POPCOM) – Region XI is conducting its 3rd Adolescent Health and Development (AHD) Film Festival with the main theme: “Post Millenial Filipinos: Renewed Hope vs. Risk.” Region XI’s entries will delve on the “effects of suicide attempt on self-esteem and life satisfaction among youth from Davao Region” based on the results of the recent 4th Young Adults Fertility Study (YAFS-4).

This year, there are eleven (11) participating schools who will contend on the regional competition — from Davao City: Sta. Ana National High School; F. Bangoy National High School; and Davao City National High School; Barayong National High School in Magsaysay, Davao del Sur; Digos City National High School in Digos City, Davao del Sur; Nabunturan National Comprehensive High School in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley; Mati National Comprehensive High School in Mati City, Davao Oriental; Tagum City National Comprehensive High School in Tagum City, Davao del Norte; Kapalong National High School in Kapalong, Davao del Norte; Mambago National High School in Island Garden City of Samal, Davao del Norte and Panabo National High School in Panabo City, Davao del Norte.

Open to all grades 9 and 10 students only, the film festival will be the venue to create awareness on the status of today’s adolescents. It will also be one of the many approaches of POPCOM in helping the young people in the crucial stage of their development so that they will grow into healthy, responsible and productive adults. The film produced will be packaged and disseminated as part of the advocacy materials for AHD.

To equip the student participants with basic knowledge and technical know-how on story development, screenplay writing, cinematography, video and sound editing and producing and directing, an orientation workshop on the AHD program and basic filmmaking was held on August 9-11, 2017 at the Apo View Hotel, Davao City.

Student filmmakers are required to submit original film entries in two (versions) a 15-minuter and 2-minuter with a 60-seconder trailer all complete with English subtitles.

The Regional winner for the 15-minuter film will receive a cash prize of P15,000 while the second and third runners-up will get P9,000 and P6,000 respectively.

Winners for the 2-minuter version will also get cash prizes of P7,000 for the regional winner, P3,000 for the 2nd runner-up and P2,000 for the 3rd runner-up. Cash prizes will also be awarded to the following: Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Musical Scoring, Best Actor/Actress, Best Supporting Actor/Supporting Actress, Best Editing, Best Poster and Best Production Design.

Last year’s regional winner was “Kapit-os” by the Davao City National High School. The film placed 2nd in the national competition and was one of the Philippines’ official entry to the 10th International Children’s Film Festival (ICFF) in Bangladesh. (POPCOM XI/SJSF)