(CineMag SIGNIS). Filmmaker and photographer from the Philippines, Arjanmar Rebeta is bubbling with creativity. This young talent produced The Little Planet, a nice short film about the environment among many others.
Complicity with nature The beauty of nature added to the nice film music made by songs of birds, the screams of other small animal species and the sound of water are like an invitation to contemplation. The spectator becomes the protagonist of the world which is his “freedom”, the one he should fight for. The actor can then walk, run, swim, feeling happy on the fortieth day of his stay on his planet.
For his artistic creations, especially cinema, he is the recipient of the “Harvest of Honors” Award for Cinema by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, “Film Ambassador” by Film Development Council of the Philippines, “and Indie Bravo” Award by Inquirer Philippines.
This young Filipino has a great talent in art photography and in cinema. His short film Palabras (in English, A Country in Moving Pictures) was nominated at the 42nd Gawad Urian for the Best Short Film (2019). Entirely shot on a mobile phone, this film took part to more than 20 film festivals around the world and received at least 8 great distinctions at international festivals in Egypt, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey.
Arjanmar is also the author of other short films like Super-Able, Viral Kids, My Father is an Astro-Not, The Complicated Dance to the Wheel of Life, A Boxing Country, among others. He is an alumnus of Ricky Lee’s Film Scriptwriting Workshop, Film & Media for Human Rights Advocacy Workshop and the Mindanao Screen Lab.
Multi-Laureate of Catholic film festival
He graduated Cum Laude in Philosophy at the Holy Trinity College Seminary. Before seminary, he knew nothing about filmmaking and art photography. Until he was assigned to a documentation committee. One of his trainers lent him a point and shoot camera and h started making short video presentations. He considered the seminary rector as his first photography teacher when he received some basic learning from him. Because of his passion for filmmaking and photography, he started studying through online tutorials. He continued learning filmmaking by attending film courses, workshops and masterclasses.
His first experience of joining film festival was in his own province – the Peñafrancia Short Film Festival (Camarines Sur), organized by the Archdiocese of Caceres in dedication to the 300th year of devotion to Our Lady of Peñafrancia. He entered his first short film “Right Here” (2014) and won the Second Best Film award. For the next edition of this festival, Arjanmar entered his short film “Our Mud” (2015) which won the Best Film award.
As a photographer, he was laureate of the International Photography Awards (Philippines): he was the “Event Photographer of the Year” (2017), “Moving Image Photographer of the Year” (2018) and “Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year” (2018). He received two Silver Awards at the 2018 Tokyo International Foto Awards. He was also a finalist for the 16th Annual Lucie Awards in New York (2018).
The Little Planet
In 2021, Arjanmar Rebeta produced The Little Planet, a new short film that is somehow philosophical and poetic. This film is somehow environmental because of the setting and a message of exploring the planet, our world. It is mainly as a conversation between nature and a human who is “the one spinning the planet”, as a responsibility. A message which gives sense to individual responsibility towards our world.
