CAFA Embraces BFA-Cinema
As a design school open to diverse state of the art courses, the University of San Carlos – College of Architecture and Fine Arts (USC – CAFA) embarks on a 4-year pioneering program starting school year 2011-2012: the Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Cinema (BFA-Cinema).
“[In 2008], in a meeting with then-Dean Arch’t. Omar Maxwell Espina and other college administrators, we decided that for CAFA to become respondent to the times, it has to evolve into a design school where the student of a specific art program can interact with students of other art programs and benefit from the same to become more versed in his own field,” CAFA-Department of Fine Arts Chairperson Brenda Seno, MSAD stated in her message in this year’s first semester issue of the Sinekultura Film Journal.
In 2010, a year after it was introduced to the college by now-Sinekultura Film Journal Editor–in-Chief and Acting BFA-Cinema Program Coordinator Misha Anissimov, the course was automatically presented to the USC Administration by incumbent CAFA Dean Joseph Michael Espina.
Positive conclusions for a potential film school in the university led to approval of the program in 2011.
Being the only BFA-Cinema program in the region – second to that of the University of the Philippines-Diliman – as a university-based Cinema course, future plans for the development of said program have been found necessary to compete with other film schools around the globe.
Thus the publication of the Sinekultura Educational Film Journal came about. The first academic cinema journal in Cebu, the publication aims to encourage a broader awareness among Cebuanos the culture and world of cinema.
Misha Anissimov, a Mechanical Engineering graduate of the California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California and a degree holder of Cinema in the San Francisco State University, cited the unexploited inherent talents of Cebuanos in film industry. Encouraged by his co-worker and producer-editor Cierlito Tabay, USC Alumnus Remton Zuasola director and Cinematographer Ruel Antipuesto Cinematographer; the BFA-Cinema was finally made possible together with the collaboration of CAFA and the university as a whole.
“…So, we are planning to have a Masters in FA in Cinema studies to have a scholarly film program, designed to create Cebuano professors. My message to those who are interested in Cinema is to stop watching movies from the computer, through simply downloading it on the internet, and watch movies in the Sinekultura Program to experience the world of cinema theater right before your eyes,” said Anissimov in an interview.
“For without strong cinema attendance, and film appreciation, the business of filmmaking is not sustainable in the long run,” he added.
“The BFA Cinema program is a valuable component of the CAFA future direction that is envisioned to complement its other programs contributing toward a viable Cebuano creative industry,” Dean Joseph Michael P. Espina, MURP, said in the first issue of Sinekultura Film Journal.
With 32 student-pioneers in this year’s first semester, the Cinema department expects an increase in enrollment in the current term as of this writing.
