Young Filipino counterparts wow German documentary maker1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteFor the second phase of workshops on documentary filmmaking, the Philippine Independent Filmmakers Cooperative (IFC) brought in German filmmaker Bettina Braun to facilitate week-long lectures recently at the College of St. Benilde, Manila.
Braun, who has made docus in Europe, was “pleasantly surprised” by her interaction with Filipino students. “We had very intense, thorough discussions on the topics they wanted to tackle in their docus,” she told Inquirer. “They are intelligent, open-minded, very interested.”
Majority of the students’ topics revolved around poverty, she said. “But they are approaching the issue from different angles,” she clarified. “One student proposed a docu on a slum community that’s about to get demolished. Another wanted to tell the story of fisher folk who cannot send their children to school.”
Braun sees in the students’ proposed docus the conflict between “the old and new worlds.”
“The docu is an individual, intellectual approach to a story,” she said. “As a filmmaker, it’s about finding your own language, your voice ““ from an emotional or formal perspective.”
