Do you want to be a star?

Launch your acting career with Callback’s inaugural workshop for aspiring Filipino actors

BY MANILA BULLETIN ENTERTAINMENT

Apr 29, 2025 00:20 AM

  

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AT A GLANCE

• Launched in August 2024, Callback is Asia's first digital casting platform, built to make the casting process faster, safer, and more inclusive.

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'Callback' intensive workshop

Callback, the Philippines' pioneering digital casting platform, proudly announces its first-ever intensive workshop, "Acting as a Career: Audition Fundamentals", at the Ateneo de Manila University on May 10, 2-6 p.m.

Presented in partnership with the Ateneo Fine Arts Department, this event marks the launch of Callback's initiative to nurture and build long-lasting careers for the next generation of Filipino actors. 

The "Acting as a Career: Audition Fundamentals" workshop is open to all, regardless of age and school. This one-day intensive workshop will be facilitated by Sheenly Gener, a Berlinale Talents alumna, QCinema 2017 Best Supporting Actress, and one of the country's most respected acting coaches, widely known for her instinct-driven, empathetic mentoring style. With years of experience across stage and screen, Sheenly empowers actors to trust their instincts, expand their creative range, and build the confidence necessary to thrive in the competitive acting world.

"Acting as a Career: Audition Fundamentals" is designed to demystify the audition process and equip participants with the tools they need to launch and sustain a professional acting career. The intensive workshop will cover how auditions work, the types of auditions actors may encounter, techniques for standing out during auditions, and on-camera performance fundamentals. Participants will also be introduced to the Actor's Toolkit with Callback, which includes crafting professional headshots, resumes, and set cards, and gaining insight into the tools that get talents noticed and cast. Every participant will receive a certificate of participation.

The standard registration fee is PHP 1,499. However, participants with a complete Callback profile will enjoy a discounted rate of PHP 999. Creating a Callback profile is free and gives you access to verified casting calls, job opportunities, and a growing network of industry professionals.

Launched in August 2024, Callback is Asia's first digital casting platform, built to make the casting process faster, safer, and more inclusive. Imagine LinkedIn for actors and filmmakers: a platform where talents can create professional profiles and apply directly to casting jobs, and where filmmakers and businesses can post casting calls and efficiently discover the right talent for their projects. 

At its core, Callback is committed to raising industry standards, fostering tech-forward solutions, and prioritizing safety for both talent and creators through its built-in security features.

Built on safety, fairness, and community values, Callback provides full-stack casting tools to support casting directors, producers, and filmmakers. By promoting a more transparent, collaborative, and secure casting process, Callback is helping create job opportunities, elevate talent visibility, and build a stronger, more sustainable creative industry.

More than just a tool for actors and filmmakers, Callback is a movement to professionalize casting in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia. With the rise of international co-productions and increased regional casting, Callback aims to become the go-to platform for discovering all types of talent—actors, voice artists, hosts, singers, stunt performers, background extras, and more. 

Callback is a proud awardee of the Quezon City Government's prestigious Startup QC program and was featured as a participant at the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Cannes Next, a global showcase where cutting-edge technology meets world-class creativity. The Film Academy of the Philippines, the Quezon City Film Commission, and Launch Garage support the callback. 

"Acting as a Career: Audition Fundamentals" takes place during the culmination of the Ateneo Fine Arts Festival, which runs from May 2 to May 10, celebrating what the Ateneo Fine Arts Department offers. All Ateneo Fine Arts courses will showcase their work throughout the festival through workshops, staged readings, an arts exhibit, and many more events. Food stalls will also be available for the benefit of festival-goers.

Ready to become a star and turn your passion into a profession? Join Callback this May 10, 2025, and take your first bold step into the world of acting. Sign up here: https://forms.gle/SETJvyy2Zwfk4z317 

Visit callback.ph to create your free account. Follow @callback.ph on social media to learn more and secure your slot. Limited slots only—register now!

GOSSIP GIRL: Meg Imperial’s vertical film 'Purse Lady' on Facebook goes viral

BY GISELLE SANCHEZ

Apr 29, 2025 11:12 AM

  

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AT A GLANCE

• Vertical films are short and creative movies in portraits instead of landscapes.

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Meg Imperial

Vivamax Queen Meg Imperial’s new vertical film,” Purse Lady,” is going viral on Facebook. The sexy actress has three million followers on Facebook. 

Vertical films are short and creative movies in portraits instead of landscapes. These are the short films you see on Facebook, like Dhar Mann, which focuses on good values and faith, which I like. There is another vertical program I love, which is about the emperor of China disguising himself as a pauper to find a wife. When you watch it, you will get hooked and proceed to the viewing app it is promoting. 

I was able to interview Meg regarding her new project on the set because I am also a part of Purse Lady. I asked Meg about her role and a little synopsis of the film, “My name is Jade Yu, in the vertical film, and I am the 'Purse Lady.' I am a multi-millionaire but a recluse, very shy, like a hermit. I own an international bag and purse business, such as Louis Vuitton or Chanel. My bags are known worldwide, but not me as a person. I don’t come out on social media. Everybody knows my name, but cannot put a face to me since I live like a hermit. Since elections are coming up, many candidates seek financial support from my company through solicitation letters, even if they do not know my face. But I do not know these politicians, so I got an idea from my secretary to be an undercover assistant to these politicians, to check if they deem me fit to support them financially for their campaign. But lo and behold, while this happens, a lady imposter suddenly emerges and poses as me, the 'Purse Lady.' She takes my esteemed and prestigious reputation, wealth, influence, and money. How to get it back? Watch our program in the Just Vibin App since you can only watch so much on Facebook," Meg tells Gossip Girl. 

The Just Vibin App is a downloadable app on your iPhone or Android phone that features creative content produced by the Purse Lady and other content creators. Just Vibin has a Creator Boost Program, which helps emerging talents monetize their content through tips, subscriptions, and product sales. Just Vibin allows creators to be featured on curated community pages and live events, making finding and building an audience easier. The creator who produced Purse Lady is director Nijel de Mesa, an award-winning director who recently won the  Best International Film Director award for his movie "Malditas in Maldives" at the 2024 Jinseo Arigato International Film Festival. 

I asked the writer-director and former Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB)  Vice Chairman why he called his vertical film “Purse Lady”. Was this a pun to our “First Lady,'' “Hahaha! Giselle, you are always a funny, brilliant girl! The Purse Lady is about a Lady who owns a purse business. So it has nothing to do with the First Lady of the Philippines. But for the title to ring a bell, I did hook it to the title First Lady, but no allegory or insinuation to her in the film. The series highlights the journey of woman entrepreneurs focusing on her resilience to get out of her rut because of an impostor ruining her reputation. I produced this in my production NDM studios and used the Just Vibin App as my social platform to release it.”

Those who are intrigued by "Purse Lady" can download the Just Vibin App for free and enjoy its programs and entertainment. 

As a Germanic language speaker, how do other Germanic languages sound to you?

Andreas Mehne

UX Designer, Language Enthusiast

They sound… Germanic to me, including English.

That comes from certain phonological commonalities among this language family that makes for a certain kinship. Unlike most other respondents I’ll focus on how other Germanic languages as a whole contrast with other language families. For context I speak German natively, English native-like, then several Romance languages, a bit of Dutch and Danish and a smattering of Hungarian.

Here’s what the phonologies of the Germanic languages have in common:

• An audibly large, differentiated vowel phoneme repertoire (1) that native speakers of non-Germanic languages usually struggle with.
• Distinct vowel length contrast that usually (but not always) mates open articulation to short vowels and closed articulation to long ones.
• A stressed-timed prosody (speech rhythm) with stressed syllables receiving noticeably more articulatory weight than unstressed ones (2).
• Except for Dutch, Afrikaans, and certain German dialects, there are usually aspirated plosives (stops) like /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /tʰ/.
• There’s often some nucleus you can understand or guess at without much foreknowledge as a speaker of one Germanic language when overhearing a conversation in another, though I have some reservations about most English speakers in that regard.

French has a noticeably Germanic (Frankish) influenced vowel system. While clearly not a Germanic language, that gives it an overall sound quality quite unlike that of other Romance languages. Most Romance and many Slavic languages, and also Modern Greek, give roughly equal weight to the articulation of each syllable, so word stress does not have quite the same effect (with a few exceptions, see #2 below). In Slavic languages the phonetic effect of palatalisation is a strong component of their overall sound impression, and in Hungarian a consistent if weak first-syllable stress is completely independent from the distribution of vowel length—just to illustrate how certain languages or language families contrast with the bullet points above.

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(1) A similarly extensive vowel system exists in Turkish, too, as far as I know.

(2) Portuguese (Romance) and Russian (Slavic) have quite pronounced effects of stress on vowel quality, too, however without distinguishing vowel quantity, i.e. length.

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To touch on the specific sound impressions of other Germanic languages, as that was obviously part of the question, too:

Dutch is phonetically close to some of the Ripuarian (Rhineland) dialects I’ve been familiar with since childhood. It has a certain iambic, ta-daah, ta-daah speech rhythm (in some speakers) and an overall laidback feel, with less tense articulation than German. Same goes for offspring Afrikaans.

Yiddish is German that’s hard to understand at first. After a while it begins to sound like certain upper German dialects (Palatinate, Franconian maybe…) pristinely preserved, and that is exactly where some of its roots were. It has audible Slavic adstrats and some Slavic derived idiomatic calques like the concept of verb aspect.

Swedish and Norwegian have a famous tone accent that produces a characteristic melody. Danish has a secondary-articulation glottal stop (stød) in lieu of that tone accent that produces an unusual micro-hiatus in otherwise smooth speech. The occurrence of <d> and sometimes <t> articulated as a dental approximant (softened /ð/) causes an effect often described as garbled.

Icelandic has a wonderfully archaic sound, as if our fore-bearers are speaking to us in hipster disguise. This is as close to Old Norse as you get, and it’s as if you hear the blustery, thundering North Atlantic in the background. Trite clichés aside, it produces a really intriguing accent when Icelanders speak other Germanic languages.

English has a distinct sound impression from the retroflex /ɹ/, particularly in its rhotic varieties where vowels become r-coloured. Together with the approximant /w/ and the preserved dentals /ð/ and /θ/ which many other Germanic languages have lost, it has a more liquid quality. The proliferation of diphthongs give certain variants of English a twangy sound.

German has quite dry and brittle phonetics and slightly tense sounding vowels. In my humble opinion, and speaking of clichés, that is why it can easily produce an impression of harshness when articulated with a stabby, sharp or pedantic attitude. Speakers of German, Swiss, and Austrian dialects may dismiss this as just a feature of Standardhochdeutsch. It’s not, just chill when speaking.

What are the signs that your kidneys have recovered from failure?

 

Dr. Oliver

Health Educator | Health Writter| Speaker

869 followers

19 following

Dr. Oliver👨‍⚕️ is a dedicated advocate for self-help and general health, committed to guiding individuals on their journey to optimal well-being.

What are the signs that your kidneys have recovered from failure?

If you’ve been diagnosed with kidney failure or injury, it’s natural to wonder if your body is bouncing back.

The good news? Kidneys can recover—especially if the damage was sudden and treated early.

But how do you know if they’re actually getting better? Let’s explore the signs, both physical and medical, that your kidneys are on the road to recovery.

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Can Kidneys Really Recover from Failure?

First, let’s clear something up. There are two main types of kidney failure: acute and chronic.

• Acute kidney injury (AKI) happens suddenly, often due to things like dehydration, infection, or a reaction to medications. With fast treatment, AKI is often reversible.
• Chronic kidney disease (CKD), on the other hand, develops over time and is usually permanent. But even with CKD, kidney function can improve and stabilize with the right care.

So yes—recovery is possible, especially if your kidneys weren’t severely scarred and the underlying cause has been treated.

Healing takes time. Depending on the situation, it might be days, weeks, or even months before real signs of improvement show.

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Early Signs of Kidney Recovery You Can Feel

Your body often speaks before lab results do. Many of the early signs of kidney recovery are felt more than seen—and they can be subtle.

If your kidneys are healing, you may notice:

1. More consistent urination

You may start peeing more regularly, with normal color and flow.

This is a strong sign that your kidneys are filtering fluids better again.

2. Less swelling

If your feet, legs, or face were puffy, you may notice the swelling going down.

That’s your body clearing out extra fluid—a job your kidneys do when they’re working well.

3. More energy

Kidney failure often brings fatigue. Feeling more alert, energized, and awake can be an encouraging sign that your body is balancing itself again.

4. Improved appetite and fewer stomach issues

As kidney function improves, nausea often fades, and food starts tasting better. If you’re hungry again, that’s a great sign.

5. Clearer thinking

Brain fog is a real issue during kidney failure. If your thoughts are sharper and your mood is lifting, it might be a sign that toxins aren’t building up like they were before.

These physical changes don’t always happen all at once—but even one or two can indicate that your kidneys are getting back on track.

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Medical Signs and Lab Results That Show Recovery

While how you feel matters, lab results give a more exact picture of your kidney health.

If your kidneys are improving, doctors will notice it on paper first.

Here are the lab-based signs of kidney recovery:

• Lower creatinine levels
  Creatinine is a waste product. High levels usually mean the kidneys aren't filtering well. If your numbers are dropping, it shows progress.
• Decreased BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen)
  Like creatinine, BUN rises when kidney function is poor. A lower number is a positive recovery sign.
• Improved GFR (Glomerular Filtration Rate)
  GFR measures how well your kidneys are filtering blood. The higher the number, the better. Even small jumps in GFR mean a lot during recovery.
• Balanced electrolytes
  When your potassium, sodium, and phosphate levels return to normal, that suggests your kidneys are getting back in control.
• Stable blood pressure
  High or unstable blood pressure often comes with kidney trouble. When your BP starts to settle—without extra meds—it can mean your kidneys are stabilizing, too.

Your doctor will likely monitor these levels regularly through blood and urine tests.

They may also check how much urine your body is producing—a major indicator of filtering ability.

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Long-Term Monitoring and What to Expect

Even if signs of recovery are showing, it’s important to stay cautious. Kidneys are sensitive, and relapses can happen if care isn’t taken.

Your healthcare provider will likely recommend:

A. Regular lab tests

Keeping an eye on bloodwork helps detect any dips in function early.

B. A kidney-friendly diet

Even during recovery, you may need to limit certain foods—like salt, potassium, or phosphorus—to avoid overworking your kidneys.

C. Proper hydration

Not too much, not too little. Drinking the right amount of water helps keep things flowing smoothly.

D. Avoiding medications that strain the kidneys

NSAIDs (like ibuprofen), contrast dyes, and some antibiotics can slow healing or cause more damage.

Always ask your doctor before starting new meds.

For those who were on dialysis, recovery signs may lead to a reduction in sessions—or even an end to dialysis altogether.

However, this should never be done without close medical guidance.

My Research Sources

Information referenced from the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Mayo Clinic, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). All data medically verified and up to date with current nephrology guidelines.

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Final Thoughts – Listen to Your Body, Trust the Process

Kidney recovery can be a quiet, slow process—but your body will let you know when things are getting better.

More energy, regular urination, normal blood pressure, and good test results are all steps in the right direction.

Healing doesn’t always mean full reversal, but every sign of improvement counts.

Stay committed to your treatment plan, eat clean, hydrate wisely, and check in with your healthcare provider regularly.

Your kidneys are tough. With the right care, they can surprise you.