Ria

Status Development

Country The Philippines

Synopsis

RIA (22/F), a timid folk-punk musician living in an artists’ space owned by a cancer patient, grows a hard shell as she solves her family’s financial challenges by accepting side gigs from her friend who is a por-nography video actress.

Director

ARVIN BELARMINO was born in Masbate, raised in Manila and is currently based in Cavite, the Philippines. In 2017 and 2018, “Nakaw” won Best Director at the Short & Sweet Film Festival, Best Fiction Film in the 3rd Minikino Film Festival, Best Fiction Film in the Brussels Short Film Festival, Best Short Film in Gawad Urian and was a finalist at the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival Short Film. In 2019, “The Gathering” was in competition at the Mobile Filmmakers’ International Fest. His recent film “Tarang” (Life’s Pedal) screened at Cinemalaya 2020 and won Best Film at Interfilm Berlin 2020. Belarmino also founded Halikon Films, a community of artists collaborating to produce and distribute their projects while using the same platform to support and teach aspiring filmmakers and conduct screenings to raise funds to help victims of calamities.

Producers

CARMINA CRUZ is an actor and filmmaker based in Bulacan, the Philippines. She is a community executive at the Cinego Shorts Film Festival and producer/programmer for the Three-Shot Film Festival. She is currently producing the art house feature “Endings Are The Saddest Part” under Bakunawa Productions, horror feature “Kalbaryo” (The Suffering) with Carlo Valenzona, and a series “Ritwal” under Media Underground Films.

AUGUST ESPINO is a visual artist, director and filmmaker. He is the founder of the Three-Shot Film Festival and CEO-President of Clayshop Inc., and its newly established sister company Media Underground. His portfolio in-cludes works for Petron, Toyota, Nestle and Mitsubishi.