We received news from CMS alumni Shea Formanes (BA, 2023) who won a 2025 Project Arts Grant through 4Culture for her upcoming short film, DIWATA. The film is a Filipino-American fantasy drama about a grandmother who ditches her 80th birthday (and toxic family) to resurrect her dead granddaughter, only to discover that her granddaughter has transformed into a diwata, a Filipino supernatural nature spirit that now guards the place where she died. Now reunited, both granddaughter and
grandmother must reconcile with each other and their past before the sun rises, and the granddaughter disappears forever.
In addition to the grant, DIWATA won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film Screenplay (as well as a cash award) at the Nevada City Film Festival, and won the Award for Best Short Film Screenplay at the Imagine This Women's International Film Festival in New York City. The film also placed as a Finalist for the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge through CAPE and Janet Yang Productions, a grant program that supports Asian-American and Pacific Islander filmmakers and artists to produce short films. Since January 2025, DIWATA has gone on to place in screenwriting competitions and film festivals across the United States.
Having brought together an extremely talented crew of Filipino, Filipino-American, BIPOC, queer and/or disabled crew members from WA, Shea has officially launched their crowdfunding campaign on Seed&Spark to raise the $30,000 needed to pay their cast and crew, as well as truly bring this film to life. To learn more about the film, and to follow along with their journey, please follow them at the following links.
Seed&Spark Campaign: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://seedandspark.com/fund/diwata*story__;Iw!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!m23xVWN32MrTjEix3Ik8JnVpjVXNfopk0khZ9bCIG4Yqqgq4YWPeZ5f3CAP027q6P2kI3TMBGM5ehwcfcQI$
Instagram: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.instagram.com/diwatafilm?igsh=dW4xbXF3YTN3MXp0__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!m23xVWN32MrTjEix3Ik8JnVpjVXNfopk0khZ9bCIG4Yqqgq4YWPeZ5f3CAP027q6P2kI3TMBGM5eNJPgq4Y$
Good luck Shea!