GLENN BARIT’S debut feature Cleaners, a stop-motion film made from photocopied stills, won QCinema International Film Festival’s top award along with the Best Screenplay and the Audience Choice Awards during the awarding ceremony held on Oct. 18 at the Novotel Manila Araneta Center in Quezon City.

The film, set in Tuguegarao in 2008, is a coming-of-age anthology about high school classroom cleaners. It competed against two of the film festival’s Filipino film grantees and five Asian films in the Asian Next Wave category of the festival. (See review on this page. — Ed.)

Rae Red’s Babae at Baril, about a department store saleslady whose life changes when she finds a gun at her doorstep, won Best Director, Best Actress for Janine Gutierrez, and Gender Sensitivity Award at the festival.

The Best Actor trophy went to Por Silatsa of the Laotian film The Long Walk by Mattie Do.

The festival features 70 films from the Philippines and around the region in a bet to become the “premier film festival in Southeast Asia” according to festival organizers.

The QCinema film festival runs until Oct. 22 at Gateway Mall cinemas, Ayala Trinoma cinemas, Robinsons Galleria cinemas, the UPFI Cine Adarna, Cinema 76 Anonas, and Cinema Centenario.

Below is the complete list of winners:

• Best film: Cleaners by Glenn Barit

• Best Director: Rae Red (Babae at Baril)

• Best Actor: Por Silatsa (The Long Walk)

• Best Actress: Janine Gutierrez (Babae at Baril)

• NETPAC Jury Prize: Suburban Birds by Sheng Qui

• Special Jury Prize: Tokwifi by Carla Pulido Ocampo

• Best Editing: Lee Chatametikool for Nakorn-Sawan

• Best Screenplay: Cleaners by Glenn Barit

• Best Short Film: Judy Free by Che Tagayamon

• Audience Choice Award (short film): Excuse Me Miss Miss Miss by Sonny Calvento

• Audience Choice Award (full-length): Cleaners by Glen Barit

• Gender Sensitivity Award: Babae at Baril by Rae Red

• Lifetime Achievement Award: Vic del Rosario (Viva Films) — Zsarlene B. Chua

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