Seymour Sanchez, an advocacy filmmaker and freelance writer, bagged the Audience Choice Award for his short film Caretaker, a story about a new custodian’s challenges, at the recent Active Vista International Human Rights Film Festival.
In the film, Rolando Inocencio plays a character that replaces the previous keeper of a wealthy family’s vacation home. A single parent who tries to make ends meet, as he takes care of his two children, he meets his boss, and is informed that the house will be for the holiday. He starts cleaning the place in preparation for their arrival. The caretaker is caught off-guard when the owner’s son returns one night, with his fraternity brothers, who had other plans in mind.
The festival features short movies that share compelling stories of people whose freedoms and rights are trampled upon and give voice to those who suffer in silence. The topics dwell on and stimulate passionate discussions about human rights and capture the intensity of these filmmakers as they view the world in their own perspectives.
The film previously won second place in the short fiction category of the Sixth CAM International Festival for Short Films in Cairo, Egypt. It likewise received the Golden Philippine Eagle Festival Director’s Choice Award and Best Actor trophy for lead actor Rolando Inocencio in the short film category of the Third Singkuwento International Film Festival, co-organized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
It was screened at the 22nd Annual Filipino International Cine Festival (FACINE) at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, California and at the International Film Festival Manhattan at the Producers Club in New York City.
Sanchez is a former producer for News and Current Affairs programs at CNN Philippines, Solar News and TV5. He is a graduate of Ricky Lee’s 14th Scriptwriting Workshop and Brillante Mendoza’s First Film Directing Class.
He is now a communication and film professor at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), Far Eastern University-Manila and College of the Holy Spirit-Manila.
