Makiling Film Lab is a new program under the Department of Humanities, which will have at its core film workshops and intensive short courses on filmmaking processes open to all UPLB

constituents and amateur filmmakers from Southern Tagalog. Aside from housing the Makiling Film Lab itself and providing venue for regular screenings, the soon-to-be-launched cinematheque in UPLB envisions to be the home of a regional (Southern Tagalog films) archive, a first in the country, a film library, as well as a repository of local and foreign films and film references.

Makiling Film Lab will break ground in advancing the art of filmmaking not only in a University that does not have any film program and has a highly-scientific orientation, but also in the neighboring towns and provinces. With this program, UPLB holds a central role in promoting film as one of the forms of expressing individual, regional and national identities. This is consistent with the mandate of national agencies on film, such as the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP); both of which could be possible collaborators in the program.

The Makiling Film Lab, being situated in the Southern Tagalog region, supports the national initiative of NCCA to promote filmmaking in the regions. Regional films introduce exciting changes in the dynamics and discourse of a ‘Philippine national cinema’, and UPLB is on the front and center of this historic turn in our film and cultural history.

Makiling Film Lab has the following objectives:

• to encourage the production and exhibition of, and critical discourse on films;
• to provide opportunities to showcase original films of filmmakers from UPLB or Southern Tagalog;
• to promote film appreciation and literacy; and
• to engage various stakeholders (LGUs, private sector, etc) to collaborate and support its programs and activities to make them sustainable.