MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippines is the country in focus at the 1st Asian Hot Shots -- Festival for Films and Video Art which runs from January 16 to 22 in Berlin, Germany, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Monday.

Citing a report from Philippine Ambassador to Germany Delia Domingo-Albert, the DFA said the festival opened with the European premier of the Filipino film “Keka” directed by Quark Henares. Some 500 guests attended the event.

At least 42 Philippine short and feature films will be shown throughout the festival, which aims to enhance friendship and understanding between filmmakers from the Asia-Pacific region and their counterparts and audiences in Germany.

Albert said the festival chose the Philippines as focus country this year in order to highlight the resurgence of Philippine cinema as reflected in Filipino filmmakers using digital technology.

The festival brings together young Asian filmmakers and their works that will serve as “a catalyst in enhancing friendship and understanding between and among film artists and their counterparts and with their German and international audiences in Berlin.”

Citing the comments of the organizers, Albert said the Philippines’ century-old cinema industry, which began at the onset of the 20th century, was still taking the lead in Southeast Asian filmmaking.

On Friday, Goethe Institute Manila launched the book titled “Kino-Sine: Philippine-German Cinema Relations” edited by Tilman Baumgärtel that chronicles the beginnings of the experimental and alternative film movement of the 1980s in the Philippines, which paralleled developments in contemporary German cinema.

During the premier, a panel of experts in Philippine and German cinema discussed Philippine-German cinema collaboration, namely, Nick Deocampo (director, Mowelfund Film Institute, Manila), Kidlat Tahimik (filmmaker, Philippines), Richard Künzel (director, Goethe Institute Manila), Ingo Petzke (professor for film and video at Fachhochschule Würzburg), Christoph Janetzko (filmmaker, Berlin), Jürgen Brüning (Pornfilmfestival) Berlin, and Tilman Baumgärtel (editor of Kino-Sine, University of the Philippines).

Deocampo was a panelist at the Seminar for Southeast Asian Studies at Humboldt University Berlin on the theme “Queer Cinema in Southeast Asia” which was led by the Human Rights and Sexual Identity section of Amnesty International on January 17.