University of the Philippines Film Institute
The University of the Philippines Film Institute, also known as the UP Film Institute or UPFI, is a film school located in Quezon City, Philippines. It is attached to the UP College of Media and Communication and engages in theater and extension services, academics, and research related to cinema. The UPFI offers degree programs in the bachelor's and master's level.
Officially established in March 2003 through a resolution by the UP Board of Regents, the UPFI formally unifies two previously separate constituents of the University of the Philippines Diliman: the UP Film Center and the Department of Film and Audio-Visual Communication of the College of Media and Communication. It primarily operates within two venues: the UPFI Media Center where majority of film classes are held, and the UPFI Film Center where exhibitions and theatrical screenings are mainly shown. To date, the UP Film Institute is the only academic institution in the Philippines that is a member of the International Association of Film and Television Schools.
History
The origins of the UPFI can be traced back to the UP Film Society, a precursor to the academic entity known as the UP Film Center. When the UP Film Society developed into the UPFC and became a distinct university unit in 1976 under the UP President's Council on the Arts, the late poet and playwright Virginia R. Moreno became its founding director and the UPFC assumed the role of giving "instruction, research, and community extension work in film as art." On January 1, 1983, the UPFC was officially attached to the UP Institute of Mass Communication upon recommendation by the Committee to Review Academic Programs to attach research and extension centers to appropriate degree-granting university units. In the UPFC's case, the Institute of Mass Communication became its parent unit. The policy was approved by the UP Board of Regents and aimed to encourage interaction and close collaboration between the involved constituents in terms of teaching, research, and extension activities.In September 1993, a triad committee was formed to review the status of the UPFC's attachment to the College of Media and Communication which apparently had not been effected. Chaired by Professor Merlin Magallona and with Professor Angela Sarile and Professor Efren Abaya as members, the committee was created by former UP President Emil Q. Javier in response to an inquiry by the late Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani. In March 1994, the recommendation to unify the UPFC and the CMC's Department of Film and Audio-Visual Communication was put forward by the committee. This was endorsed by President Javier to the BOR during its 1077th meeting on May 27, 1994, and was met with approval. On July 28 or two months later, the BOR reconsidered in its 1079th meeting the implementation of its decision regarding the merger "in view of a proposal to make a 'Film Academy' out of the Film Center." The academy was initially proposed by UPFC's Founding Director Virginia Moreno and was called the Academy of Cinematic Arts and Technology. Consequently, the discussion on merging the UPFC and DFAVC was postponed indefinitely.
From the postponement onwards, there were multiple attempts to lift the BOR's deferment on the case of the UPFC and DFAVC. On August 24, 1994, the CMC Executive Board sent a letter to the BOR stating its position in favor of the merger and against the proposed ACINETEC. On September 22, former Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs Amaryllis Torres assembled a meeting with faculty and staff from both the UPFC and the CMC to discuss the formation of a UP Film Institute. However, further meetings were halted by President Javier on account of the BOR's pending appraisal of the ACINETEC. In January 1996, former Chancellor Roger Posadas put together a Transition Committee made up of former CMC Dean and UPFC Director Luis Teodoro, former DFAVC Chair Ellen Paglinauan, Professor Virginia Dandan of the College of Fine Arts, Professor Anthony Juan of the College of Arts and Letters, and Vice-Chancellor Torres as the chairperson. The committee was assigned to furnish the merger implementing guidelines for presentation to the BOR. However, the guidelines were not deliberated by the BOR until seven years later. Meanwhile, the proposed ACINETEC was also left unassessed since it was last raised in 1994.
On its 1169th meeting dated March 27, 2003, the BOR approved with finality its 1994 resolution to unify the UPFC and the DFAVC into one academic unit now recognized as the UP Film Institute. According to the merger proposal addressed to the BOR, the ACINETEC was rendered moot when Virginia Moreno requested on March 14, 2003, to have the UPFC's original autonomy restored under the university's Office of the President. The merger proposal indicates that one of the merits of the formation of the UP Film Institute was that it affirmed university policy, in contrast to Moreno's proposal which called for the BOR to rescind its decision in 1982 on requiring independent centers to be attached to colleges. As a film school, the unrealized ACINETEC shared similarities to the formally established UP Film Institute; it sought in the past to establish a three-year course leading to a Certificate in Cinematic Arts and Technology, a program conceptualized by the UPFC and authorized by the BOR as early as 1979.
Past events and programs
Before the introduction of a film degree in the UP Institute of Mass Communication, the UPFC pioneered in film training through international exchanges. It opened lectures and workshops that gave students the opportunity to train under invited luminaries of the time, such as Vilgot Sjöman, Werner Schroeter, Peter Kern, Kōhei Oguri, Christopher Giercke, Don Pennebaker, Wolfgang Längsfeld, Dan Wolman, Alexander Walker, and Tadao Sato among others. One of the early outcomes of these exchanges was the Cinéma Direct Workshop facilitated by French filmmakers Alain Martenot and Jean-Loïc Portron, former directors of the Paris-based association Ateliers Varan. Part of a diplomatic program funded by the Embassy of France, the workshop ran for two months beginning late April 1982 and provided intensive training in Super-8 filmmaking. Participants were lent filming equipment and tasked with creating their own individual films. Although the Varan association had been to other parts of the world before it came to the UP Film Center, the Philippines was the first country it visited in Asia to conduct its courses. The UP Film Center was also the Cinéma Direct Workshop's first location, following a series of film programs that would later travel to other regions in the country. Another program during the 1980s was a seminar on the history of German experimental cinema organized in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut. Initially held in September 1984, the "lively response" encouraged subsequent Germany-sponsored film programs to be arranged, with the latter ones taking place at the Mowelfund Film Institute in the late 1900s.The early 1980s also saw the Film Center organize the Manila Short Film Festival led by Nick Deocampo, an exhibition and later competition for original short films. The first edition of the festival was held in April 1981 in the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater and proceeded with further editions for several years before dissolving. The Manila Short Film Festival focused on independent and experimental works and has been credited for its role in helping establish the alternative movement in Philippine cinema.
Academics
In 1984, the College of Media and Communication, formerly called Institute of Mass Communication until 1988, then College of Mass Communication until 2025, introduced Film and Audio-Visual Communication as one of its undergraduate program offerings, which became known as the first of its kind in the Philippines. Joel David, a graduate of journalism, enrolled in the program that same year and in 1986 became the first film baccalaureate holder in the country, after graduating as the sole film major in his class. Master's degree programs, on the other hand, were offered in the IMC as early as 1966, but it was not until 2002 that Film would be added as a new area of concentration under its MA Media Studies program alongside concentrations in Broadcast Communication and Journalism.As a degree-granting unit, the UP Film Institute trains and instructs its students in the practice and scholarship of cinema, culminating into individual production- or study-based theses. The coursework for the undergraduate level is designed to encompass all aspects of cinema while the postgraduate level is focused on the study and praxis of cinema with an emphasis on globalization and new media. Among the prominent academics that have taught in the Institute are Grace Javier Alfonso, Tilman Baumgärtel, Joel David, Nick Deocampo, Ingo Petzke, Arminda Santiago, Nicanor Tiongson, and Roland Tolentino.
According to its mission, the UP Film Institute aims to produce graduates who would share in its goal of "contributing to the development of genuinely Filipino national cinema." Its current end is in "increasing professionalization in Philippine film practice and upgrading local film scholarship." Aside from degree programs, the UP Film Institute also regularly holds workshops and seminars on various cinema-related topics for students and non-academics alike.
Degree programs
- Bachelor of Arts in Film
- Master of Arts in Media Studies
Institute directors
| Director | Term |
| Virginia R. Moreno | 1976–1989 |
| Bienvenido L. Lumbera, PhD | 1989–1992 |
| Delia R. Barcelona, PhD | 1992–1994 |
| Luis V. Teodoro Jr. | 1994–2000 |
| Elizabeth L. Enriquez, PhD; Victor C. Avecilla, JD | 2000–2002 |