BAKUNAWA FEST (formerly Bakunawa Young Cinema) is the first fantastic and genre-based film, art & music festival in the Philippines and the longest-running fantastic filmfest in Southeast Asia. Bakunawa is a mythical 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.
Bakunawa Festival has an annual film camp and series of film workshops for young Filipino filmmakers that culminates into a section of our festival, producing mostly genre films (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, folk, noir, folk, etc). The films that the film camp participants produce competes in a unique section created for young filmmakers.
Bakunawa Fest loves new visions, new voices. We support young promising filmmakers, artists and musicians who either have no access to expensive workshops and may not have the name/recognition to be programmed in a festival. Since our third edition, we have included a section that screens curated local and international films - mainly for educational purposes. Most of the Bakunawa Film Camps are done as outreach programs/workshops and are hosted by different cities in the Philippines.
During the pandemic years and lockdowns from 2020-2022, we have temporarily migrated to mostly online screenings but, in 2023, we shall conduct more live screenings following health protocols. For our tenth edition, we will do a semi-hybrid festival wherein we screen more films in live venues and do a limited program online.
We also continue our partnership with SolarFlix TV wherein we show curated film programs on Philippine Primtime TV, screening to Filipino audiences all over the Philippines reaching to millions of viewers. Visit our website at https://www.bakunawafestival.com/
