Mindanao Festival of Slow Cinema to host pop-up screening in GenSan

 

GENERAL SANTOS CITY — The Mindanao Festival of Slow Cinema will hold a pop-up screening on April 18 at Sip Station Café, featuring films that prioritize stillness and duration over the fast-paced nature of mainstream media.

The event, scheduled for 6 p.m. at the corner of Quezon Avenue and Sampaloc Street, follows the festival’s opening on April 10 at Green House Cinema in Davao City.

The screening will highlight Salome, a film by festival director Teng Mangansakan that was partially shot in General Santos City and Tupi, South Cotabato. The film explores memory and identity through the lens of Mindanaoan landscapes.

Mangansakan said the festival aims to encourage audiences to "linger and to sit with silence" in a world that often demands urgency.

“Slow cinema is not about what happens next, but about what is happening now,” Mangansakan said. “It is a cinema of patience, where time is not something to be conquered but inhabited.”

The program also includes Quiet Currents: A Slow Cinema Marathon, a curated selection of Asian and Philippine films characterized by long takes, minimal dialogue, and an emphasis on human presence. 

According to Mangansakan, Asian filmmakers have long used duration as a narrative tool to blur the line between fiction and lived experience.

The festival organizers seek to cultivate a new sensibility among regional audiences, transforming cinema into an experiential medium where silence holds meaning.

The screening is free and open to the public. Additional information is available on the festival’s Facebook page.

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