Supporting Stories: The CCP Wants to Highlight Our Tales, Myths, and Legends—and They're Putting Money Where their Mouth is - Arts & Culture

They have earmarked P20 million to help promote our folktalkes, myths, and legends.

The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Board of Trustees has earmarked around P20 million in development funding.

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This will launch its CCP Grants, which aims to generate original Intellectual Property (IP) content that reflects the country’s rich cultural heritage with its folktales, myths, and legends. This program, additionally hopes to stimulate the local creative economy by providing financial and technical and education support to our local creative businesses, content developers, artists, and students.

By supporting and encouraging Filipinos to create original content, the CCP aims to produce a collection of original IP and deep understanding of their IP rights and build a national identity in terms of original Filipino content development that will showcase the talent and ingenuity of the Filipino people that is at par with global standards.

“Global Animation Industry revenue is around $270 billion and the Philippines contribute to around $20 million to $30 million per year,” says CCP Board of Trustee Benedict Carandang.

“We have an estimated 10,000 full time artists supporting this industry,” he continues. “On the other hand, the Global Gaming market is around US$174.9 Billion and $1.38 million is the local contribution or .008% of the market worldwide. The comics industry meanwhile, we have around 1,000+ self published titles, 266 Published titles from 12 Publishers, and an estimated 5,000 original IP creators supporting this industry.”

Carandang hopes that the seed investment of the CCP will help encourage future government legislators to support and fund programs like this that can help stimulate the local Creative Economy.

Filipino content creators can pitch their ideas for a chance to win in any of the following three categories, namely: Game Development Grant, Animation Grant and Comics Grant.

For the Game Development Grant, a potential of seven winners will be awarded with a maximum cap funding of P1.5 million each to create and complete a digital game project with a mix of creative, cultural and commercial outcomes, and content derived from the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art.

The Comics grant offers P330,000 for a potential of six winners; while the Animation Grant has a funding of P2 million each for four potential winners to bring into life five-minute animated short films.

Both the animation and comics output must be developed around the theme, Philippine Folktales, Myths and Legends. In addition, a training component with leading industry professionals will be integrated for the winners.

“In this digital era, visual and literary arts in the form of animation, comics and even gaming have made an impact in the lives of the public,” adds CCP Board of Trustee Nikki Junia.

Animation, she points out, allows us to tell stories that both children and adults can relate to while it stimulates imagination and creativity bringing it to real life.

“Comics is a creative way of communicating history and sharing cultures that can be intriguing and entertaining. An industry that is equally thriving is gaming as it helps build communities and connect people from all over the world,” Junia says. “All these art forms are important to be given attention to as it can support the preservation, development and awareness of the culture and arts that will be engaging for today’s generation.”

The CCP Grants program is supported by the following associations namely Creative Content Creators Association of the Philippines (SIKAP), Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP), Animation Council of the Philippines (ACPI), and KOMIKET. Filipino individuals and organizations at all stages of their career are invited to join.

To learn all the details, click on the Game Development Grant Application form and the Animation and Comics Grant Application form.

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