Berlin (12 February 2013). Five Filipino filmmakers participated in this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) Talent Campus. Three-hundred (300) young and upcoming international filmmakers were selected from 4,443 applicants from 137 countries to join the 11^th edition of the Berlinale Talent Campus on the theme “Some Like It Hot – Filmmakers as Entertainer.”

The Filipino filmmakers who made it to the Talent Campus this year are Joenathann Alandy, producer; Paul Sta. Ana, director; Alemberg Ang, producer; Hannah Tabitha Espia, director; and Ian Dean Loreños, screenwriter.

(L to R) Milagros Antonio-Kropp, Cultural Attachée, Ian Dean Loreños, Hannah Espia, Alemberg Ang, Joenathann Alandy, Paul Sta. Ana

The officers and staff of the Philippine Embassy welcomed the Philippine talents at a dinner hosted by the Embassy.

This year, a new initiative was included in the Berlinale Talent Campus program. Selected participants had the opportunity to present their ideas, screenplays, films, and projects in the Berlin House of Representatives and find partners and industry representatives from festival visitors. Filipino talent, Ian Loreños, was chosen to present his project at the Berlin House of Representatives which is the venue for the Berlinale co-production market located across the European Film Market.

Sound design is also highlighted at this year’s Campus through the new Sound Studio hands-on training program. Acclaimed and multiple Oscar-winning editor and sound designer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient) joined the Campus for a master class on his groundbreaking work in connecting sound and narrative in film. The Sound Studio is a collaboration with Dolby Labs, the University of Film and Television “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam-Babelsberg, the Fraunhofer/Heinrich-Hertz Institute in Berlin, and the Berlin-based post-production company “The Post Republic.”

(L to R): Ian Loreños, , Joenathann Alandy, Third Secretary & Vice Consul Azela G. Arumpac, Communications Officer Willy V. Damaso, Chargé d´Affaires, a. i. Mardomel Celo D. Melicor

The participants attended the lectures and filmmaking experiences of Dutch-American filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Black Book), New Zealand’s Jane Campion (Top of the Lake), Britain’s Ken Loach (Spirit of ’45), Austrian Director Ulrich Seidl (Paradise: Hope), leading German actress Nina Hoss (Gold), and French distributor and producer Hengameh Panahi (Celluloid Dream).

The Berlinale Talent Campus is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, a business division of the Cultural Events of the Federal Government funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, in cooperation with MEDIA – training programme of the European Union, Robert Bosch Foundation, Media Board Berlin-Brandenburg and Canon.***

Berlin. 16 November 2012.  As part of the Embassy’s efforts to forge and sustain cooperation with German citizens who champion Philippine causes, Ambassador Maria Cleofe R. Natividad met with Charlotte Gödicke, a German teacher whose selfless dedication helped transform the community of Sagay in Negros Occidental. Ms Gödicke was part of a team working under the Sagay-Osterholz Partnership, a three-decade cooperation programme between the Sagaynons and the people of Osterholz District, Germany.

(Left to Right): Dr. Anne-Sophie Endres from the Evangelical Geriatric Center; Milagros Antonio-Kropp, Cultural Attaché, Charlotte Gödicke, Ambassador Maria Cleofe R. Natividad

The Partnership, and the commitment of Ms. Gödicke in the years to follow, changed the course of Sagay’s history. The former Mayor of Sagay, now Congressman Alfredo G. Marañon, Jr., himself notes that his singular contribution to the development of the community is the successful negotiations of the sponsorship contract with the District of Osterholz in West Germany.

It was in 1982 when Charlotte Gödicke, in her capacity as photographer and English teacher, traveled to Sagay, Negros Occidental, with Karl Deneke, then town councilor of Osterholz-Scharmbeck, near Bremen, northern Germany. In the early 1980s, the economy of Sagay, primarily based on revenues from sugar production, had collapsed. Prices of sugar had dropped and the sugar plantations could no longer sustain the region.

This was the condition when Ms. Gödicke arrived in Sagay for the first time. She was appalled by the widespread poverty. She immediately realized that it was not enough to donate money to the people of Sagay. Upon her return to Germany, she forged contacts with development organizations, educational institutions, church communities and youth unions to gather resources for Sagay. For 25 years, she worked to improve the health condition of children, organized water supply, taught how to administer the city, acquired medical assistance, and established schools for the community. For decades, she was able to gather a total of 1.5 million Deutsche Mark for the city of Sagay.

Today, Sagay is an emerging tourist destination with a 32,000 hectares marine reserve and a carbin reef with a 200 hectares marine sanctuary.

In 2004, Ms Gödicke’s work was recognized with a presidential award given to individuals for supporting specific sectors or communities in the Philippines.

Ambassador Natividad also met Dr. Anne-Sophie Endres, a former trainee in Sagay, who now a medical doctor, who expressed her interest to organize a medical mission to Sagay again in the near future. END