Bianca Balbuena

Bianca Balbuena is a 31-year old producer, writer, co-founder and CEO of Epicmedia Productions Inc which has produced over 25 feature films most notably Venice Film Festival 2009 Lion of the Future and Orrizonti Best Film: "Engkwentro" by Pepe Diokno and Berlinale 2016 Silver Bear "A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery" by Lav Diaz. She also the youngest awardee of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) FIAPF Award for contribution to Asia Pacific cinema. She has attended Produire Au Sud, Rotterdam Producers Lab, Talent Campus Tokyo, Cannes' La Fabrique des Cinemas du Monde, EAVE Ties That Bind and Berlinale Talent Project Market where she won the ARTE Prize for her film, Above The Clouds, her first venture into French co-production. She has mentored in film labs and served as jury of film festivals such as Fribourg and Durban. She was also nominated for the Best Foreign Producer at the Madrid International Film Festival 2015. Her next collaboration with Lav Diaz is his upcoming musical feature "The Season Of The Devil" which will premiere early next year. She has produced films which have premiered and won in festivals such as Venice, Berlinale, San Sebastián, Toronto, Busan, Tokyo, Thessaloniki, Rotterdam, Taipei Golden Horse, Sydney and Karlovy Vary. In the Philippines, she is most known for producing Antoinette Jadaone's "That Thing Called Tadhana" which became one of the highest grossing independent film in Philippine box office history on a production budget of 60,000 USD. She is currently producing Bradley Liew's "Motel Acacia" which was part of the 2017 Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab and has been supported by BiFan's NAFF IT Project and EAVE Ties That Bind. Liew's debut feature, "Singing In Graveyards", premiered at Venice Film Festival Critics Week 2016 and is chosen to participate at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2017 along with yet another film she produced, Those Long Haired Nights. Her mission is to strengthen collaborations within the region and help deserving directors bring their films to the global scale.