Vilma Santos-starrer Ekstra and 13 other Filipino entries competing in 2015 New York Festivals

 


Thirteen Filipino programs and TV campaigns are nominated in the prestigious 2015 New York Festivals World’s Best TV & Films competition.

GMA-7 has the most number of entries with eight nominations. ABS-CBN has four nominations and TV5 earned one nomination.

This annual competition honors excellence in TV programming in all lengths and formats from stations, networks and independent producers from over 50 countries.

TV5 is competing in the Human Concerns category for its show Kaya (We Can).

Ekstra, starring Vilma Santos, is the lone Filipino film competing in the Feature Film category. This Cinemalaya entry depicts the dire situation of bit players in the entertainment industry.

GMA-7 ENTRIES. Also competing in the Human Concerns category is the travel documentary program Motorcycle Diaries that airs on GMA News TV.

The “Karapatan ng Bata” episode showed how poverty denies countless Filipino children their basic rights through the eyes of several less fortunate children in the country.

The Kapuso weekend news magazine program Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho was shortlisted in the Human Interest category for its episode “From Saudi with Love.” A heartwarming story about gratitude that crosses borders, defies language barriers, religion and ethnicity, the episode featured Saudi journalist Rawan Radwan’s search for her former Pinay nanny.
 
Chosen as one of the finalists in the Community Portraits category was afternoon program Reporter’s Notebook for its “Burak at Pangarap” episode. It centered on the story of twelve-year-old Junjun, one of the 78,000 children in Metro Manila facing severe deprivation of shelter, after his family was left homeless when a fire razed their home and more than a hundred other houses in Malabon City.
 
Late-night documentary program Front Row, in turn, made it as a finalist in the Best Public Affairs Program category for its feature on the neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Titled “ALS,” the documentary took viewers beyond the viral Ice Bucket Challenge and showed the real story behind the disease in the eyes of the patients and their families.
 
Katipunan, GMA Network’s first historical mini-series, earned a finalist status for its premiere episode “Teresa” under the Best Camerawork category.

Produced by GMA News and Public Affairs, Katipunan shed light on the real Andres Bonifacio and the men and women who started the revolution.
 
Meanwhile, nominated in the Biography/Profiles category was GMA News TV’s weekend documentary program Reel Time featuring “Dungkoy,” a ten-year-old boy from Calauan, Laguna, who was abandoned by his parents and was left alone to take care of his paralyzed grandmother.
 
“Walang Rape sa Bontok,” one of the winning entries in the first Cine Totoo Philippine Documentary Festival produced by GMA News TV, was listed as a finalist in the Film/Documentaries category.  The documentary by Carla Samantha Ocampo tells the story of two Filipinas, both victims of sexual abuse, who yearn for a utopia where women can live without being sexually violated.
 
Lastly, GMA News TV’s “May Pag-asa” station ID, a collection of stories of hope that aims to show the power of the human heart to see light in the midst of darkness, was chosen as one of the finalists in the Station/Image Promotion category. -- PEP.ph
 
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