Our Team – FACINE

People of FACINE

Founder / Current Director of FACINE

Mauro Feria Tumbocon, Jr., cultural worker and writer/journalist, has written extensively on Filipino cinema and popular culture for more than two decades, both here in the United States and in the Philippines. His critical essays on the works of Filipino filmmakers, notably Lav Diaz, and film genres, like the Philippine horror film, have been published in film journals and book anthologies in Europe and Asia.

Mr. Tumbocon organized the first Filipino American film festival in San Francisco in 1993, the largest ever shown in the United States. He is the founder and current director of FACINE or Filipino Arts & Cinema, International (formerly known as Filipino American cineArts), a nonprofit media arts group that aims to promote and develop transnational Filipino cinemas. FACINE holds the annual Filipino-American cine festival and competition.

He is also a member of Asian Writers Institute, a California-based organization that advocates for the interests of Asian writers and journalists, a cause that includes professionalism of the Asian American ethnic press, in the US.

Mr. Tumbocon was a member of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics Group), 1986-1989 and founded the interdisciplinary critics groups, the Young Critics Circle, 1990 and Kritika, 1992 in Manila.

He was a correspondent of the Filipino-American newsweekly, the Philippine News and was a fellow of the University of Southern California-Annenberg School of Journalism. He is currently a fellow of the Wildflowers Institute, a San Francisco-based organization that works on new concepts of community organizing.

At present, Mr. Tumbocon works in a non-profit organization that provides services to individuals who are formerly homeless in San Francisco.

FACINE Working Group

Executive Board
Mauro Feria Tumbocon, Jr., Founder, Executive Director
Sheilani Alix, Director, Festival Operations
Neil Torrefiel, Director, Digital Experience and Marketing

Festival Committee
Leni Marin
Deo Noveno
Caroline Ocampo
Kenneth Pando
Araceli Tamayo-Lee

Legal Counsel
Amancio “Jojo” Liangco, Esq.

Poster designer
Jim Flores

Website designer
Caroline Patalinghug