THE 30-minute film of Pedro ?Joaquin? Valdes ?Bulong? won the Golden Duck award for Best Short Narrative at the 2nd New Beijing International Movie Week.

According to the actor-director, the original list of 150 entries was later trimmed down to the 25 short and feature-length films that were screened at the film fest.

The screenings for the films were held in clubs and bars, as well as in the Beijing Film Academy (BFA) and the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) to reach a wider audience.

Valdes said, ?In spite of the language barrier, the Chinese students who watched the movie at the CAFA got it, and the students were shocked to learn that my budget was only US$4,000 (about P200,000).?

He stressed that he was dedicating his film to today?s youth. ?I want to address the issue of apathy among Filipino youth. We cannot just watch from the sidelines. We should all be catalysts for change.?

Valdes is now working on two movies: ?Hamog,? an indie horror flick set in the Mountain Province; and ?Hakaw,? a celebration of food and family as experienced by three generations of Chinese-Filipinos.