Jun Lana offers free screenwriting workshop

MANILA, Philippines - 2014 has been a banner year for writer-director Jun Lana (photo). In April, his film Barber’s Tales won the Crystal Mulberry Audience Award at the Udine Far-East Film Festival in Italy. In July, he was named Best Director for the same film at the Madrid International Film Festival. In August, when Barber’s Tales was shown in Manila, it opened to rave reviews. And just last month, his screenplay for his movie Bwakaw won Best Screenplay at the Pyongyang International Film Festival in North Korea. To cap the year, Lana decided to give back by offering a screenwriting workshop to aspiring writers for free.

Open to writers 18 to 40 years old, interested applicants must e-mail their full resumé along with their photo to [email protected] on or before 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 10.

There will be a preliminary screening on Dec. 14. Only 20 applicants will be chosen for the workshop.

Lana is an accomplished writer who has already won 12 Palanca Awards for Literature and was the youngest member inducted into the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2006. He is also an educator, having taught screenwriting and film production at the University of Santo Tomas and creative writing at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.