Circle

THE YOUNG Thomasian art group Daloy Kulay paid tribute to their alma mater in a homecoming exhibit titled “Looking Back” at the UST Museum last March 25 to April 18.

Employing different mediums from oil to fiberglass and textile-infused mixed media, the works tackled such themes as the pursuit of the inner self, the miracle of the mundane and the powers of the heart.

Painting cum laude Michelle Lim showed teaser images of a woman’s story. “When I was Small, the Woman Said” shows a woman’s feet in a pair of sandals on a carpet of grass. The title and the painting spell irony —the sandals being too large for the woman’s feet with the sides bulging slightly, suggestive of the woman’s past.

Aspiring filmmakers from UST and other schools learned the ropes of independent filmmaking in the first UST Cinevita Film Workshop hosted by the Varsitarian and facilitated by Thomasian filmmaker Jim Libiran.

The workshop, held for two weekends of April, “is for free, but you have to pay through sweat and blood,” Libiran said.

Libiran was the director of the film Tribu, which won the grand prize in the Cinemalaya Film Festival in 2007 and the Best Youth Film in the 2008 Paris Cinematheque.

Helping Libiran train the participants in the rigors of indie filmmaking were film producer Dodge Dillague; Ralston Jover, ABC-5 creative director and the writer of Kubrador, 2008 Gawad Urian Best Picture; and Paolo Villaluna, writer-director of the acclaimed film Selda.

The workshop took participants through various aspects of film making. It also disabused from their minds certain misconceptions about film making.

For its third year, Cinevita, the Varsitarian’s festival of films that celebrate “meaningful expressions of life,” paid tribute to the cinema of Brillante Mendoza with a festival of his key oeuvre, including Serbis, the first Filipino film to break into the the Cannes Film Festival in more than a quarter of a century, last February 26 and 27 at the Thomas Aquinas Research Complex Auditorium.

THE COLLEGE of Tourism and Hospitality Management (CTHM) and the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD) melded aesthetics and hospitality in the exhibit “Fyu-Jon: A Fusion Festival of Food, Arts and Businesses.”

Held last March 3 to 5 at the Plaza Mayor of UST, the event was a collaboration of third- and fourth-year students of CTHM, as well as Interior Design students from CFAD.

“KABUGAN,” the title of Teatro Tomasino’s twinbill production this school year, means ruckus. But two plays, “Kulay Rosas ang Dapit-hapon Minsan sa Isang Taon” and “Anino,” had little connection with the title.

NOBODY thought Quentin Tarantino could measure up to, or much more, top himself. After all, this insanely brilliant man gave us Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown, all or most of which sit comfortably in almost every self-respecting film buff’s ‘top ten’ lists. That is certainly a tough act to beat. But after six years of absence from Hollywood, he resurfaces and throws Kill Bill Volume 1 (Miramax) our way.

THOMASIANS got the rare chance to view Juan Luna’s controversial “Parisian Life” in the exhibit “History and Destiny” at the UST Museum of Arts and Sciences.

Along with “Parisian Life”, displayed were Lunas in the UST collection, such as “Playa de Kamakura” and “The Italian Soldier”.

DIMMED lights, serene atmosphere, and historical artifacts as backdrops—it was a perfect setting to envelope oneself with hymns and classical melodies performed by one of the top chorales in the world. And indeed, the performance of the UST Singers last Nov. 11 to 12 was a delightful mix of rhythm and symphony, their grandiose sounds echoing within the jam-packed halls of the UST Museum.

THOMASIAN artistry has hit platinum.

In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Fine Arts program in the University, the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD) presented Visions at Platinum, showcasing the works of Thomasian visual artists of the four disciplines—painting, advertising, interior design, and industrial design—from Nov. 8 to 18 at the GSIS Museo ng Sining.

CFAD Dean Jaime delos Santos said approximately a hundred artists lent their work for the exhibit.

IF A PICTURE paints a thousand words, certainly a hundred is more than enough to portray 150 years of culture?

150 Years of Photography in Spain, a traveling exhibit curated by Publio Lopez Mondejar, features 113 images of people, landscapes, and different man-made wonders that exhibited the Spanish culture of the mid-19th century up to the late 1970s and was the attraction at the National Museum last Sept. 27 to Nov. 6.