This past week, students and film buffs alike gathered in Eugene for the sixth annual Cinema Pacific Film Festival, put on by the University of Oregon. The festival spanned from April 27 to May 3, and featured a variety of Filipino films. Each year, the festival focuses on the culture of a different country that borders the Pacific Ocean. This event is meant to promote filmmakers from such nations, including the United States. Tickets were between five to 10 dollars per film, and the showings were open to all ages.
The festival was very successful this year, having had certain films sell out and fill the theater. One of the most exciting evenings was on Thursday, for the showing of Tall as the Baobab Tree by Jeremy Teicher, Alexi Pappas and Jay Smith. All three creators were in attendance and had a lengthy interaction with the audience. Most films did, in fact, have their director in the crowd, ready to perform a question and answer segment post screening.
The director of the festival, Richard Herskowitz, is confident that it will be back next year. “I’m already thinking about what the country focus (for next year) is going to be,” he said.
The Cinema Pacific Film Festival is almost fully student run. Herskowitz, also a UO professor, teaches the course “Cinema Pacific.”  The course is available to about a dozen students at a time, both undergraduate and graduate. “We conceive this event, and we put on this event together,”Herskowitz said.
The festival was kicked off with the Adrenaline Film Project, an event in which filmmakers have three days to create their submission. It is an intense and exhilarating portion of Cinema Pacific. Then, the week of films began.
Cinema Pacific closed with an authentic Filipino film, Balikbayan #1 (Memories of Overdevelopment), by Kidlat Tahimik. “I tried to pick a film (to end with) that we could accompany with some international delicacies,” Herskowitz said. “I wanted it to be the latest film by (Tahimik).” He explained that there was a warmth in the audience towards Tahimik because his film “Purfumed Nightmare” was presented the night before.
After the film was played, the audience was treated to traditional Filipino refreshments.
Tahimik agreed that he felt very welcomed by the Eugene audience. “I am really happy with today,” he said. “You get different reactions in different places. The Eugene crowd was laughing consistently. They were with this voyage, totally”. He will now head to Seattle to complete his west coast tour.
Tahimik’s film took thirty-five years to complete, and premiered earlier this year at the Berlin International Film Festival. There, it won the Caligari Prize.
“For films like mine, where you don’t have big name stars, you don’t have a lot of crashing cars or sex and violence, to get the film launched, indie filmmakers hope to get invited to a major festival, and get a good review”.
Cinema Pacific was very well received this year, pulling in a large amount of viewers throughout the week, as well as recruiting many successful filmmakers for the event. Its culturally rich nature fits in perfectly with Eugene’s atmosphere of diversity. As long as locals continue to support the program, the Cinema Pacific Film Festival will likely live on.