MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The film industry is comprised of groups and groups of people who each offer something extremely valuable to the director’s table, and most of them are those that are behind-the-scenes and often forgotten. These are setmen, carpenters, electricians, utility personnels, grips, headcrews, and those who make sure the tiny, often taken for granted, details are not overlooked so filming can run smoothly.
However, in light of the current situation in the country with the COVID-19 crisis and all productions ceasing operations, these daily earners are unable to work and earn their livelihood, making them the most vulnerable sector in the film community.
To show their support for these individuals that are currently out of a job, the Director’s Guild of the Philippines has launched a fundraising campaign to help out over 1,000 vulnerable film workers. The Guild has partnered with Ang Lupon ng Pilipinong Sinematograpo, and The Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop, in a unified campaign with the Lockdown Cinema Club who collated and validated the database for the project.
Paolo Villaluna, DGPI President shared,“The fundraising is a private initiative, of several autonomous film organizations supporting a cause – FDCP, we believe, has their own initiative.
“Lockdown Cinema Club is the brainchild of independent director Carl Chavez. He thought of an initiative to raise funds for below the line film workers and gathered other like-minded filmmaker volunteers to help him. They thought of streaming short films for free and it has a fundraising component: for displaced film workers during this pandemic.
“The challenge was in creating a comprehensive and current database of film workers since ours is a very informal industry. Lockdown Cinema Club had to collate and validate with various sectors with a strict protocol. Film organizations like DGPI (Paolo Villaluna), LPS (Mackie Galvez) and the Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop (Ricky Lee) were creating initiatives to also help the industry during this crisis – it was decided to be a united front and support the efforts of Lockdown Cinema Club. When you have three of the most active guilds in the industry in solidarity for the below the line workers – it’s a good reminder for workers that their concerns aren’t being ignored.”
Lockdown Cinema Club’s Carl Chavez shared how the campaign was executed:
“When we started, we targeted helping 50 workers and to gift them a P2000 donation. However, when we already involved all the departments in filming, the camera department, production design, post, ect, we easily got 500 names. And as the news about our fundraising got out and we have other groups joining us like the DGPI and the Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop, the numbers seem to keep growing. These are all culled and vetted from the heads of each department. So for someone who works in the camera department, they had to reach out to their cinematographers, and the cinematographers are the ones who will contact us. The same with the other departments. And so at the rate we’re going, we feel that we’ll reach 1000. And that seems like a good number to aim for, at least at this time. We are constantly evolving and so we adjust as we go along the way.”
DGPI Board Member Pepe Diokno also shared his sentiments on the project, “I’m really inspired by how the industry has come together to help its most vulnerable members. I’d like to invite film lovers to join us as well. These film workers are rarely celebrated. Now is the time to give back to these unsung heroes of Philippine Cinema.”
The details on how to donate can be found below:
The Film Development Council of the Philippines also launched today a program with a similar objective, to which Villaluna says: “Since FDCP has launched their DEAR (Disaster/ Emergency Assistance Relief) Program today, we feel like it’s a welcome initiative, and we are grateful a local government agency sees the importance of supporting our displaced film workers during this crisis.”
