Hiraya Films bags five awards in CINEBEDISTA 2017

Independent production team Hiraya Films, headed by a group of fourth year AB Communication students from DLSU-D, bagged five awards in the interschool short film competition CINEBEDISTA 2017 organized by Beda.Comm, held at Fr. Roberto de Jesus Auditorium, San Beda College Alabang on September 23.

The awards received by Hiraya Films include the Best Actor for Adnel Aquino, Best Cinematographer for Regi Cabrera, Best Director for Vianca Adornado, Best Picture for the short film Bihag, and the overall first place award in the said competition.

In an online interview with The Heraldo Filipino, Hiraya Films Manager Kim Paras explained that their short film Bihag is a psychological thriller about a man haunted by a presence of an incident that he witnessed, and has been threatened by the culprit ever since.

When asked about how she felt when they won in the CINEBEDISTA 2017, Paras expressed, “Everything still feels surreal! We are really overwhelmed because there are a lot of great films that competed with us as well. Besides, we were not really expecting that we would ace the recent film competition.”

 

DLSU-D based independent production team Hiraya Films won five awards in CINEBEDISTA 2017 held at San Beda College Alabang on September 23.

Paras mentioned that there were only six members, including the actors, who produced the short film Bihag, despite their original group number of more than 20 members in Hiraya Films.

Bihag’s director, Adornado, said that Hiraya Films aims to raise awareness regarding social issues through films. “Nabuo lang siya sa RTV (radio and television production) class naming no’ng third year first sem[ester] and our group decided to continue making films. Mostly ‘yong genre namin is parang dystopian ‘yong dating pero naka-set sa Pilipinas to make it more relatable sa mga makakanood ng short films namin,” Adornado furthered.

This is the third time that Hiraya Films has competed outside DLSU-D, said Paras. Their first competition was the international film festival Short+Sweet Film Manila, which was held in more than 30 cities across 12 countries earlier in July of this year. Paras mentioned that Hiraya Films qualified for the special screening held at De La Salle University – Manila after their entry made it to the top 40 films.

A month later, Hiraya Films’ competed for the second time in the Power Mac’s Pixelworx: Cinemansanas “Do you have a Minute” 60-second film competition on August.

“We are really looking forward to join more film competitions in the future,” Paras furthered.

This year, CINEBEDISTA showcased short films focusing on societal issues, such as feminism, racism, and work employment.