FEATURE: Kerwin Go and Eskrimadors

A Los Angeles trained filmmaker, 34- year-old Kerwin Go recently garnered local industry success with his documentary Eskrimadors, a look on the history and journey of Filipino martial art Eskrima or Arnis. The film had its world premiere January 30 at SM Cebu and, on February 20, it closed Cinema Rehiyon Film Festival held at the Cultural Center of Philippines . Both screenings earned rave reviews from critics, FMA enthusiasts, and regular moviegoers.


Born and raised in Cebu City, Kerwin was one of the principal founders of RCTV, Real Cebu Television Channel 36. He led create original local programming which became really quite popular. Aside from  local accomplishments, he served as Director of Photography to two feature films for an LA production company. 


For Eskrimadors, Kerwin multi-tasked as director, producer and writer of the documentary. He said, "I was inspired to do Eskrimadors because I wanted to do a film that spoke about my culture and identity. Cebu is the mecca of Eskrima. Eskrima is as Cebuano as anything can get."


"The goal of Eskrimadors was to shed light on this very under-appreciated part of our culture and heritage.  It is somewhat of a dying art form here in the Philippines and we were compelled to do whatever it was in our power to help preserve and promote it."


With a thumbs-up from critics and FMA aficionados and a jam-packed world premiere,  Kerwin mentioned that he was blown away by how the film was accepted. 


"The reception to Eskrimadors is nothing short of amazing. People come up to us afterwards to thank us for making the movie. They say it moves them and makes them proud to be Filipino. Even foreigners in attendance say that they are inspired by it. Its a great feeling and a validation of the hard work we put into making the film."


Eskrimadors is now available on DVD through Amazon's Createspace Order-On-Demand service.