Nabunturan explores events tourism

DAVAO CITY- The Municipality of Nabunturan is exploring events tourism to lure in more visitors to the town.

One of these events is the Nabunturan Indie Film Exhibition (Nabifilmex) which is on its second year and will be held this October 16-19.
Nabifilmex is an annual film festival which features short films from the region. It is a grantee of the NCCA (National Commission for the Culture and the Arts) endowment fund for the arts.

According to festival director Atty. Karen Santiago Malaki, so far there are 15 short films being submitted all of which came from Compostela Valley.
The films will be exhibited at an open-air cinema set-up by the Open Air Cinema Foundation (OACF) which provides cinematic screenings for communities who are far from regular movie houses.

Malaki said that Tourism Council of Nabunturan hopes to organize events such as the Nabifilmex to attract visitors considering that the town doesn’t have many ecotourism destinations.

She said that their famed hot springs are affected by mining activities and private developments particularly inland resorts are not enough to entice tourists to come to their place.

“Kelangan ng pam-pabibo (We need something to enliven) we thought the town might as well venture into event-organizing.” Malaki said.
Nabifilmex complements the existing events in the town which includes Araw ng Nabunturan and the Simballay Festival.
“Having a film festival here in Comval has many benefits.” Malaki says.

Among these include promoting locales thru films, develop skills for Nabunturanons particularly in filmmaking, provide avenues for employment and help the Department of Education as their K+12 curriculum now includes media arts.

After Nabifilmex, the tourism council of the town is also planning to conduct performing arts workshops. Nabifilmex has a film workshop component, the films from the workshop are then screened during the film festival. (PIA/RG Alama)