23rd Annual FACINE Film Festival in San Francisco

FACINE/23, the 23rdannual filipino international cine festival opens with this year’s Cinemalaya festival best film, Eduardo Roy, Jr.’s PAMILYA ORDINARYO [ordinary people], an urban drama about teenage parents in the streets of Manila on Wednesday, October 19, 7 pm and will close with San Francisco’s own, Matthew Abaya’s VAMPARIAH, a horror adventure film about Philippine mythical aswang (female vampire that appears as segmented creature)  on October 22, Saturday at 9:00 p.m.

The festival, co-presented with the Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. (PAWA) and sponsored by The Filipino Channel (TFC) and inquirer.net, opens on October 18 at the Diego Rivera Theater, City College of San Francisco with a lecture by Prof. Joel David, FACINE Gawad Lingap Sining honoree and film screenings to run October 19-22 at the Roxie Theater, 3117 – 16th Street, San Francisco. Major Community Partner is the Philippine Studies Department, City College of San Francisco.

The annual festival, the longest-running event in the US, has been the premier showcase of new works and Filipino film classics in the United States for the past 23 years. It is organized by FACINE or filipino arts & cinema, international, a not-for-profit media arts organization based in San Francisco that aims to advance the interests of cinemas from the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora.

This year’s festival highlights a lecture on film criticism by this year’s FACINE Gawad Lingap Sining honoree, Prof. Joel David on October 18 at the Diego Rivera Theater, City College of San Francisco at 6 pm; a tribute to FACINE’s first Gawad Sulong Sine [forward, film] to producer Ferdinand Dizon Lapuz through special screenings of four films he produced (Eduardo Roy, Jr.’s PAMILYA ORDINARYO, Louie Ignacio’s LAUT, Jun Robles Lana’s BARBER’S TALES and Carlo Enciso Catu’s ARI: MY LIFE WITH AKING; and the special screening of Cenon Obispo Palomares/David Corpuz’s KUSINA [the kitchen] in conjunction with the awarding of FACINE’s Gawad Gintong Ani [gold harvest/Lifetime Achievement Award] to Filipina actress and Visayan film icon, Ms. Gloria Sevilla on October 22, Saturday at 7:00 pm.

A wide array of new works by filmmakers from the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora on varying subjects and genre will be presented in different programs.

Co-presentor of this year’s festival is PAWA or the Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc., a nonprofit organization of Filipino American writers and artists whose main goal is to create and encourage literature and arts for the preservation and enrichment of Filipino and Filipino American historical, cultural and spiritual values.

For more information and full program schedule, please see website: www.facine.org. For further information, email: mtumbocon@gmail.com or text: 415-410-9566 or tickets purchase, check website: www.roxie.com, festival passes and group rates available.