Baby Ruth Villarama

Baby Ruth Villarama has been involved in international co-productions for more than 10 years as a producer and documentary film director. She started creating news and current affairs stories for ABS-CBN before she was commissioned by international channels as a liaison producer for Southeast Asia. She eventually co-produce socially- relevant films with filmmakers and other producers from the region, where some have been championed in key international festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Venize and others. Baby Ruth earned her master's degree in film marketing and distribution from Birmingham City University in the UK as a Chevening Scholar where she recently won the 2018 UK Global Alumni Social Impact Award for influencing global conversations, and policy changes on migration and modern-day slavery through her films. She is the director of the documentary film Sunday Beauty Queen (2016), the first documentary that rose above a pool of narrative films in the 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival winning best picture. She's part of a team that puts up Voyage Studios and Film Producers Society, startup organisations that push Filipino stories reach a wider network. Villarama is currently a member of the cinema committee at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and a member of the board of the Directors' Guild of the Philippines.