QCinema Announces the Participants Selected for the 2024 QCinema Critics Lab 2024

In its 12th year, QCinema International Film Festival (QCIFF) opens its doors for the second time to six (6) emerging and established critics from across the Philippines to participate in the QCinema Critics Lab. Motivated by a desire to expand and deepen the discourse on Philippine, Southeast Asian and international cinema, QCinema established the laboratory to actively support film criticism, promote coverage of non-English language and arthouse films in the Philippines and to help talented film critics. from any background and at any age in developing their careers as independent cultural workers with uncompromising voices.

The 2024 QCinema Critics Lab participants are Acer Batislaong, Brontë Lacsamana, Joaquin Singson, Ligaya Villablanca, Maverick Alviar and Mac John Bautista. More information about each of them can be found below:

Acer Batislaong is a Caloocan writer who covers government contracts by day and independent Philippine cinema by night. He is a contributor to IONCINEMA.com and has written articles for Nylon Manila, covering youth culture and entertainment. In his spare time, you can find Acer listening to a voice memo from Lav Diaz urging him to keep pursuing his movie dreams.

Brontë Lacsamana is a multimedia reporter who covers arts, culture and entertainment for the Philippine business newspaper BusinessWorld. She writes about visual arts, performing arts, music, literature and cultural heritage, and reviews films in her spare time. She has written content online and reviewed audiovisual material for archival purposes.

Joaquin Singson is a writer and cultural worker from Quezon City. In 2018 he was shortlisted for the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism and has been published in Heights Ateneo and NANG Magazine. His research and writing focuses on music and art criticism, Cold War and Third World history, and anti-imperialist movements in the Global South.

Ligaya Villablanca is a dreamer from Visayas. They have programmed short films for micro cinemas in the Visayan Islands, Australia and the US. Has a hobby of having conversations about regional cinema and how its existence plays a role on the national and global stage.

Mac John Bautista is a mechanical engineering student in DLSU-Manila. He actively seeks out and attends film events in and outside Metro Manila. Currently, he is a contributing writer for the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers and the Managing Director of Kinoise.

Maverick “Mavs” Alviar is pursuing his BA in Art Studies with a minor in Theater and Performance Practices from the University of the Philippines Diliman. He has previously interned at the UP Vargas Museum, Likhaan Fair, and currently at the Bulwagan ng Dangal University Heritage Museum and the Yuchengco Museum.

Led by FIPRESCI member and three-time Golden Globe voter Jason Tan Liwag, the QCinema Critics Lab offers insight into the crafts of film criticism, curation and audience development. Participants will experience a three-day intensive in-person workshop/forum where they will watch and review films, interview filmmakers and discuss with industry professionals – including but not limited to established critics, researchers, media professionals and more. Participants in the second edition of the lab are expected to express criticism in the form of short reviews, long festival reports, podcasts and video essays.

Experts who will speak during the sessions include (but are not limited to): Founder and Editor-in-Chief of CNN Philippines Life, Philippine Advisor to the Far East Film Festival, and National Book Award nominee Don Jaucian; two-time National Book Award finalist and acclaimed film critic and programmer Richard Bolisay; musician, filmmaker, cultural journalist and recipient of the Prince Claus Seed Award, the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature and the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism Mariah Reodica; film critic, translator and Gawad Urian-nominated screenwriter Carl Javier; QCinema Critics Lab and FEFF Film Campus fellow and co-editor of MARG1N Magazine Alyssandra Maxine; and Brooklyn-based filmmaker, critic, programmer and editor of Mike De Leon’s two-volume memoir Last Look Back Aaron E. Hunt.

As the QCinema Critics Lab becomes a continuing education initiative, all eight (8) emerging critics from the first edition will be invited back to participate in the forums and discuss with the new crop of critics. They are: Alyssandra Maxine, Bane Vicente, Justine Danielle Reyes, Kaj Palanca, Lé Baltar, Novy Mae Recate, Red Sales and Roselle Marie Abanilla.

The QCinema Critics Lab is a program of the 12th QCinema International Film Festival, taking place from November 8 to 17, 2024, and is made possible through a partnership with The Millas Hostel and Cafe and Sine Pop in Cubao.

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