MANILA, Philippines?The ongoing Leap Film Fest 2009, screening a week each at different Robinsons Movieworld theaters, brings together a number of socially relevant documentaries.

Topics such as child abuse, volunteerism and human rights, among others, are discussed in the films from different countries. The documentaries will eventually be screened in various campuses.

The month-long festival aims to ?use film as a medium to express, inform, uplift, and encourage people to be part of every solution.? Leap starts its Philippine Campus Tour in November, and then goes to China in October, and to Vietnam in December.

Two documentaries produced by VSO Bahaginan, a development organization tapping volunteers for global antipoverty programs, were featured during the opening of the festival.

Analogy

Ray Defante Gibraltar?s ?Panudlak (Welcoming the Dawn)? focuses on education adviser Debbie Satentes? stint in Cambodia. Running at a little over an hour, ?Panudlak? (an old Hiligaynon term referring to rituals for good harvests) creatively presents the analogy between the volunteers? endeavors and fruitful harvests.

The comparison is forgotten occasionally because of the film?s length. Still, while it could?ve been more compressed, ?Panudlak? manages to elaborate on the benefits of volunteerism. The challenges that Debbie had to surmount during her stay in a foreign country (from the language barrier to traveling through inhospitable weather conditions) are mentioned. But her eventual transition and impassioned personality are captured effectively. Snippets of Debbie acclimating and teaching Cambodian children solidify the ?harvest? metaphor.

Life-changing

Milo Alto Paz? ?RV Diaries? is likewise over an hour long, centering on six RVs or ?returned volunteers? who elucidate on their life-changing sojourns. In separate segments, they talk in detail about being transplanted to mostly rural areas in different parts of the world, the initial homesickness and being changed by the experience. Like ?Panudlak,? ?RV Diaries? offers moving personal accounts that speak of the universality of unfavorable conditions and repeatedly reminds its viewers that there?s a constant need for selfless individuals.

Screenings

Screenings of the Leap Film Fest movies recently concluded at Robinsons Movieworld Galleria, but are currently being held at Robinsons Movieworld Ermita until Tuesday, September 15.
Subsequent screenings will be at Robinsons Bacolod and Iloilo (September 16 to 22), and Greenbelt 3 Makati and Ayala Cinema Cebu (September 23 to 29).

Visit www.leapfilmfest.org for screening schedules.