BAKUNAWA FEST X
Board of Jury I BAKUNAWA FEST X
It is our honor to present the Board of Jury for BAKUNAWA FEST X - tenth edition (2023)
JEFFREY JETURIAN
CHAIR, PHILIPPINES
Born and raised in Manila, director Jeffrey Jeturian attended the University of the Philippines, where he initially enrolled in the architecture program, later shifting to mass communications. His first job in films was as a production assistant. He also worked as a script supervisor, art director, and production designer before getting his first directorial job on a TV soap opera. After completing several made-for-TV movies, Jeturian directed his first feature, Sana, Pag-ibig Na (Enter, Love) in 1998. It was his first collaboration with screenwriter Armando Lao, who also wrote his next two movies, Pila- Balde (Fetch a Pail of Water, 1999) and Tuhog (Larger Than Life, 2000), in competition at the 2001 Venice Film Festival. (Jessica Zafra writing for Far East Film Festival)
Pila-Balde was both a critical and commercial success and won the NETPAC Jury Award at the 1st Cinemanila International Film Festival in 1999 and the Gold Award at the 2000 Worldfest International Film Festival (USA). Tuhog, on the other hand, also wowed the audience and film critics alike, winning Best Picture at the Urian Awards awarded by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Critics of the Philippine Cinema) and the Star Awards for Best Director.
His film Kubrador (Bet Collector) won even wider acclaim. In a rare feat, it won two FIPRESCI Prizes at Cinefan Festival of Asian & Arab Cinema and at the 28th Moscow International Film Festival 2006. It also won the Grand Prize at Cinemanila International Film Festival and the NETPAC Award at Brisbane International Film Festival.
Jeturian won the Gawad Urian for Best Picture (2007) and Best Film of the Decade (2011) for Kubrador. Same film won for him the Best Director Award at the Star Awards for Movies, Golden Screen Awards and at the Film Academy of the Philippines Awards. It bagged the Youth Jury Award – Special Mention at the Valladolid International Film Festival and was also nominated for Golden Spike Award for the same festival.
His films have been selected at the Toronto International Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema, BogoCine Bogota Film Festival and was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in USA.
photo: RoOrig Gan Jr.
LÊ BÌNH GIANG
VIETNAM
Le Binh Giang is one of Vietnam's acclaimed and controversial filmmakers, making waves for his directorial debut bloody horror film 'KFC' in 2017 selected for Copenhagen Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival and a whole string of film festivals around the world. The script for the film prevented him from graduating at the University of Theatre and Cinema in Ho Chi Minh because the Council of Examiners deemed the script too violent. Years after, his script for KFC won The Film of the Future Award and this helped him fund the said feature film.
KFC was an official selection at Motel X – Lisbon International Horror Film Festival (Portugal), QCinema International Film Festival (Philippines), Five Flavors Film Festival (Poland), Cambodia International Film Festival (Cambodia) while his film Kumanthong was selected at Hardline Film Festival in Germany.
In 2016, he graduated from the Tokyo Talent Campus and was since considered as one of Asia's rising filmmakers. In 2021, Giang went to Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland to present his project ‘Who Created Human Beings’ for its co-production platform Open Doors Hub. The same project received the ArteKino International Prize at the virtual Asian Project Market at the Busan International Film Festival.
His film Rock-a-bye Baby premiered at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) in South Korea. His short 'No Dogs Allowed' was one of the Closing Films of Bakunawa Fest 7. During Bakunawa Fest X (tenth edition), he World Premiered the black and white version of Rock-a-bye Baby and Jackpot Island (Director's Cut) with Rock-a-Bye Baby receiving a Certificate of Distinction as the festival’s Opening Film.
photo source: Thethao Vanhoa
TITO GENOVA VALIENTE
PHILIPPINES
Tito Genova Valiente is a film critic, film educator, public anthropologist and author from Bicol, Philippines. As a film critic, he is a member of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Critics of the Philippine Cinema), the oldest critics group in the Philippines handing out the prestigious Gawad Urian (Urian Awards). As an anthropologist, Valiente has done research on Philippine folktales and myths, social and cultural changes in selected villages in the Philippines, and migration.
He spent years in Japan as a graduate student and research fellow, studying Japanese farmhouses and Filipino migration to Japan at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. He taught in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and, later, in the Japanese Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila, teaching Japanese Cinema among others. In 2019, he became the first ever Filipino benshi – a silent film narrator - to narrate Yasujiro Ozu’s silent film comedy ‘A Straightforward Boy!’ (突貫小僧 | Tokkan Kozo, 1929) presented by the Japan Foundation Manila.
Valiente has co-edited books on transnationalization and war memories and authored “The Last Sacristan Mayor and the Most Expensive Mass for the Dead: Tales from Ticao,” through the Ateneo de Naga University Press. He is part of the art circle generated by the Savage Mind, a cultural hub and bookstore in Naga City.
He was the recipient of the Natatanging Gawad Sining Balagtas for 2015 for Lifetime Achievement in English Essay from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) or Union of Writers of the Philippines. Also a columnist for Business Mirror, a Philippine national broadsheet, he maintains two columns: “Reeling” on art and media and “Annotations” on societies and cultures. He also wrote for Bicol Mail, a regional paper, writing about regional cultures. In 2019, he was one of the honorees in celebration of 100 years of Philippine Cinema for his contribution and advocacies on Philippine regional cinema. Currently, he is the newly elected Vice Chairman of the National Committee on Cinema of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
photo source: Tito Genova Valiente