Piyu, I Love You (PILY) 2026, the annual student film festival of the Far Eastern University Film Society, returns to Cinemata for its third year of online screenings, exploring new ways of expressing love beyond familiar romance narratives with this year’s theme, “Decoding 143: Breaking the Algorithm of Affection". Read more.
Blog
Cinemata Features: Farhana Farha
Cinemata Community Curator Farhana Akter Farha reflects on her first steps into curation, shaping a programme that confronts gendered violence and creates space for voices often pushed into silence. Read more.
After the Silence
After the Silence brings together 13 selected films from Bangladesh and across Asia, available on Cinemata from March 26 to April 14. Curated by Cinemata Community Curator in-residence, Farhana Farha traces through this program how gendered violence operates across intimate, structural, and political terrains and how those pushed into silence begin to speak back. Read more.
What's New in Cinemata — March 2026
Our community-driven platform just got a meaningful update — and this one has something for almost everyone who uses Cinemata, whether you're a filmmaker sharing your work, a curator reaching out for screenings, or a curious viewer discovering the site for the first time. Read more.
Piyu, I Love You 2026: FEU Film Society Returns to Cinemata for Online Screenings
Your Films Are Safe Here: Cinemata Passes Independent Security Audit
Cinemata recently passed an independent security audit by Assured AB, commissioned by the Open Technology Fund. Here's what that means for the filmmakers, curators, and advocates who trust the platform with their work. Read more.
Cinemata x Chapterhouse: Bringing Community Screenings to a Shared Cultural Space
Cinemata partners with Chapterhouse to launch weekly community screenings in Quezon City starting March 11. Curated playlists from Cinemata’s curators move from the digital platform into a shared cultural space for dialogue and collective viewing. Read more.
SineLikas: Bridging the Climate Crisis with Human Struggles
Hosted and curated by Haring Ibon University of the Philippines Los Baños, SineLikas 2026 highlights films that confront the realities of environmental degradation in the Philippines. This year’s program explores how climate crisis and human experience are deeply intertwined. Read more.
Smarter Featured Films and a New Curator Role: Cinemata Platform Updates
Cinemata just got a meaningful upgrade. Here's what's new — and why it matters for filmmakers and our growing community of curators. Read more.
Cinemata Community Curators
We’re inviting curators, programmers, and cultural workers from across the Asia-Pacific to propose community-rooted film programmes for Cinemata. The Community Curators programme supports shared viewing, dialogue, and advocacy through film. Read more.
Better Content Control and Privacy: Cinemata.org Updates
Cinemata.org gets smarter content scheduling and stronger privacy controls. Plus, videos now work better on iPads and Safari. A small update that makes a big difference for our community. Read more.
7th Likhang Mulat: FEU Film Movements Festival
Cinemata hosts the Likhang Mulat: FEU Film Movements Festival for the fourth year in a row, presenting student films that engage urgent social issues and human rights. Stream the films for free on Cinemata from December 12 to 21, 2025. Read more.
Small Updates, Big Impact: CinemataCMS 2.1.1
CinemataCMS 2.1.1, a focused update, improves playlist playback for community screenings, enhances video loading speed across Southeast Asia, and fixes issues with Creative Commons license selection and newsletter subscriptions. The update also includes improvements to platform stability and automatic file versioning. Read more.
CinemataCMS 2.1 - Interactive Playlists & Community Discovery for Filmmakers
This update introduces a new carousel-style featured playlists on the homepage, a completely redesigned Members page that helps you find and connect with filmmakers, full 4K video support for ultra-high-definition content, and performance improvements that make the entire platform faster. Read more.
Pasiklab Ignites Online: Cinemata Brings 37th Gawad Alternatibo Finalists to the World
The 37th Gawad Alternatibo Para sa Pelikula at Video screened its finalists from October 6-9 at the Shangri-La Plaza, and now extends that reach globally. More than 50 finalists from this year's competition are available for free on Cinemata.org—accessible worldwide until January 4, 2026. This marks the third consecutive year that Cinemata serves as the official streaming platform for Asia's longest-running alternative film competition, bringing Filipino cinema to audiences beyond the Manila venue. Read more.
CinemataCMS 2.0.4: Richer Context & Enhanced Reliability for Filmmakers
This update brings significant improvements across the platform: homepage featured content now connects to related articles and programmatic literature, video view counts are now fully accurate and capture all legitimate views, homepage announcements display properly across all devices, and the upload system has been streamlined for better reliability. We've also added maintenance mode functionality to ensure smoother future updates with clear communication. Read more.
CinemataCMS 2.0.3 - Smoother Subtitles & Streamlined Workflow for Filmmakers
This update makes Cinemata work better for you. Subtitles now upload and edit smoothly, playlist management is more intuitive, email notifications are working again, and videos stream more reliably. Behind the scenes, we've also made improvements that will help us bring you new features faster. Read more.
Call for Expression of Interest: Cinemata 2.0 Developers
Join us in improving Cinemata 2.0! We're seeking Southeast Asia-based developers for project-based work on our open-source video platform. Help us create a more secure, efficient, and impactful space for social issue films across the Asia-Pacific region. Read more.
CinemataCMS 2.0.1 - Enhanced Security & Accelerated Delivery for Filmmakers
CinemataCMS 2.0.1 delivers enhanced security for sensitive advocacy content, dramatically improved streaming performance across Asia-Pacific, and completes Milestone 1: our open source transition and comprehensive security improvements guided by the Open Technology Fund. With community engagement features and filmmaker donation systems on the horizon, this update sets the stage for connecting advocacy filmmakers like never before. Read more.
Help shape the future of Cinemata: Interest check survey
Following the successful launch of Cinemata 2.0, we're forming a Steering Committee to guide the platform's long-term sustainability and growth. This community-driven approach ensures Cinemata remains inclusive, resilient, and responsive to our shared values as filmmakers and advocates. Read more.
Social Issue Films X Open Source: The CinemataCMS Experience
When social issue filmmakers, human rights defenders, and Southeast Asian developers collaborate, something powerful emerges. This is how we built CinemataCMS 2.0 - a video platform that serves movements, not shareholders. Your stories deserve technology that fights for them. Development Lead King Catoy shares how our team built community-driven technology for social justice filmmakers. Read here.
Trusted User Application Form
As a student filmmaker, video collective or advocacy group working on social issue films, becoming a Cinemata Trusted User opens up powerful tools to amplify your impact. Read more and apply here.
What's New in Cinemata 2.0
Cinemata 2.0 is here! Following a comprehensive security audit and the transition to a dedicated team of Southeast Asian developers, our platform now offers faster streaming, enhanced security including passwordless login, smarter playlists, improved transcription with Whisper Large-v3, and new community features like Curator Voices and Blogs.
Built as an ad-free, privacy-respecting alternative to Big Tech platforms, Cinemata 2.0 represents a major step forward in supporting filmmakers and advocates across the Asia-Pacific region. Discover what's new and what's coming next in our comprehensive platform update. Read more.
Cinemata 2.0: Breaking Free From Big Tech Control
EngageMedia unveils CinemataCMS 2.0 on July 31, 2025—a groundbreaking open-source video platform designed specifically for advocacy, education, and social impact in the Asia-Pacific region. After four years of development, Cinemata.org's underlying technology is now fully open-sourced, offering organizations a secure, customizable alternative to corporate-controlled video platforms.
Developed by a growing team of Southeast Asian developers from Indonesia and the Philippines, CinemataCMS 2.0 demonstrates that community-driven technology can successfully challenge Big Tech's dominance while serving movements rather than markets. Read more.
Reflecting on Cinemata Currents 2025: Stories in Motion, Conversations Across Borders
Cinemata Currents 2025, a hybrid film festival, showcased over 20 films exploring themes of displacement, feminism, minority counterpublics, and indigeneity. The festival, curated by Patrick F. Campos and Aghniadi, emphasized minor cinema as a means of reimagining dominant narratives. Through online screenings, watch parties, and workshops, the festival fostered regional solidarity and collective imagination, engaging over 400 viewers across Southeast Asia. Read more.
TAM DokyuFest returns to Cinemata for its third online run
TheFar Eastern University Department of Communication‘s TAM DokyuFest 2025, a free online documentary film festival, will be held from May 19 to 28, 2025. The festival features 16 short films by FEU Communication students exploring the theme “Different Faces of Truth.” Read more.
Cinemata Currents 2025: A Hybrid Film Festival of Shared Viewing and Civic Imagination
Cinemata Currents 2025, a hybrid film festival, will be held from June 5th to 8th, 2025, with previews from June 2nd to 4th. The festival features scheduled film sets streamed regionally, followed by live talkbacks with filmmakers. It also includes on-demand films, local watch parties, and virtual workshops exploring minor cinema and civic resistance. Read more.