Next month: Cebu City to host creative summit

CEBU, Philippines —  The Cebu City government is taking steps to maximize the city’s potential in the creative and entertainment sectors as it holds the first Creative-Entertainment Summit on March 30-31, 2023.

Vice Mayor Raymond Garcia made this announcement as part of the move for the city to take advantage of its reputation as a Creative City that UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared in 2019.

“I think this is the first-ever Creative-Entertainment summit to be sponsored by a local government unit,” Garcia said.

According to Garcia, the Cebu City government will work with the private sector in this summit, which aims to gather experts in the field of creativity and entertainment.

Garcia expressed confidence that the event will jump-start Cebu’s positioning as a creative and entertainment hub in Asia, if not the world.

“We realized that we need to make Cebu City a creative hub or district in the Philippines,” Garcia said, mentioning the recent shooting of the international film “Almost Paradise” in Cebu.

“We saw a lot of potentials when ‘Almost Paradise’ filmed two of their seasons here,” said Garcia.

He said he was able to talk with one of the “Almost Paradise” producers, which told him that the shooting of one season cost around P500 million.

“The potential to the economy and employment for the people here is big. But the thing is we have facilities. Bigfoot came so much earlier. Now we feel that Cebu City is ready,” Garcia added.

“Almost Paradise” is an American crime drama television series produced by Dean Devlin and Gary Rosen. The series is the first American television series to be filmed entirely in the Philippines.

According to the vice mayor, the holding of the first creative and entertainment is seen to address Cebu’s flaws as it strives to become a creative hub. The summit aims to convene all stakeholders and investors, as it aims to explore opportunities as well as identify Cebu’s strength in creative and entertainment.

Initially, Cebu will focus its obvious strength on animation, original content, film, and game development.

“A lot of our animators are Filipinos,” Garcia said.

Garcia added that the development of creative and entertainment sectors in Cebu is seen to blend with the promising sector of Information Technology-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) since creative and entertainment processes are dominantly technology-driven.