Blog: Film festivals

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BAKUNAWA FEST [Fantastic Film, Art + Music] is the first fantastic & genre-based film, art & music festival based in The Philippines and ran by volunteer filmmakers and artists. Bakunawa is a dragon-like creature in Philippine mythology that devoured moons. Because we are a genre-bending film fest, we want to flip the Bakunawa's role and we want it to instead symbolize the creative monsters inside us.

Because we've had a rough and tough year, our 11th edition will screen films during the 2024-2025 seasons and will have several screenings starting in December of 2024, culminating to May of 2025. Bakunawa Fest runs annually in one season - spread in fourth months becoming a hybrid festival resulting from the pandemic lockdowns.

Bakunawa was initially created with this principle: "new visions, new voices". We still stand by this principle as we continue to program young promising filmmakers, artists & musicians who either have no access to expensive workshops and may not have the name recognition to be programmed in festivals. Since our third edition, we have included a section that screens curated local and international selected films mainly for educational purposes. Most of our Bakunawa Fest's film camps are done as outreach programs/workshops and are mostly free. Here our participants are scholars paid for by the festival and its partners usually hosted by different cities/municipalities in the Philippines.

[ Please note that, since we are an artist and volunteer-ran filmfest, we can't fund filmmakers to come physically and we don't pay screening fees. ]

We are a fantastic film fest. Our festival is interested in: Horror or Thriller Films / Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Adventure / Fantastic-themed Experimental Films, New Media, Expanded Cinema / Genre-Bending Films / Fantastic-themed Music Videos / Fantastic-themed Documentaries / Contemporary Art / Photography.