Bakunawa Fest Soars Home to Bacolod
The entrance for the Cinematheque Centre Negros for Bakunawa Fest
Bakunawa Fest celebrated the Bacolod leg of its eleventh edition with a special screening of fantastic genre films last September 5-6, 2025 at the Cinematheque Centre Negros in Negros Museum.
This niche event kicked off last August 28, 2025 at Centro de Turismo, Intramuros before returning to its birthplace, Bacolod City, to showcase feature-lengths and short films from local and foreign creators with science fiction, fantasy, surreal, and experimental themes.
Two feature-length films had their Philippine premiere as part of the festival, the Spanish sci-fi drama film Boreal (2024) by Pelayo Muñiz Cabal as the first film of Day 1, and the Lebanese thriller film Zaman Dark (2023) by Christophe Karabache as the last film of Day 2.
A short film competition was held entitled Fantastic Competition Shorts which consisted of two categories: Image as Phantasm and Image as Travesty and Jocularity.
For the first category, Image as Phantasm, eight shorts were shown. The following entries were: The Shadow of Dawn (2024) by Olga Stalev, Resistance (2024) by Carolina Ceca, Capturing The Ghost (2024) by Davi Mello, The Bottle (2024) by Tuan Kien, Canto (2024) by Guilherme Daniel, The Yarn Man (2024) by Cremance, Mu (2025) by Javier Méndez Cañada, and Imago (2024) by Rafa Dengrá Oliver.
The second part, Image as Travesty and Jocularity included the following entries: Dagon (2024) by Paolo Gaudio , She and Her Good Vibrations (2023) by Olivia Griselda and Sarah Cheok, Parking Area (2022) by Toru Masuyama, A Pleasure (2024) by Sonia Estévez, An Artist’s Curse (2024) by Steven J. Mihaljevich, Vivid (2024) by Bugoy Gandeza, The A to Z of Being an Excellent Kid (2025) by Albert Aymar, Uncertainty Principle (2025) by André Brugnara Petry, Vivir (2024) by Gerardo Maravillal, and Bath Bomb (2024) by Colin G. Cooper.
This festival was an extension of the 2024 season and the twelfth edition will be held this December 2025.
Bakunawa Fest originated in Bacolod under the name Bakunawa Young Cinema before opening its doors to filmmakers and creatives from other parts of the Philippines and eventually the world.
Being excited, honored, and pressured (the good kind) may seem like generic emotions for an upcoming film production, but to the cast and crew of Ilaya Ilaya Studio’s ‘Birdsong’ it is a rare omen for pioneering plights never before soared.