The mantiw on screen

By Noel Galon de Leon

Alessa Enya Sarabia’s Hupas, an official entry to SineCOMM 2025 of the University of San Agustin, stands as an ambitious attempt to navigate the intersecting terrains of Ilonggo folklore, womanhood, and personal trauma. As a student film, it already demonstrates considerable technical discipline. Its cinematography is steady and thoughtful, its sound design controlled and coherent, and the directorial style remains consistent throughout the narrative. These choices suggest that Sarabia understands the importance of building a cinematic world through cohesive aesthetic decisions.

One of the film’s most commendable strengths is its organic use of the Hiligaynon language. The dialogue does not feel forced or self-conscious. It moves with a natural rhythm that allows emotion, tension, and silence to settle comfortably into each scene. For young Ilonggo filmmakers, this is an important lesson. Local language is not merely a decorative element nor a tool for authenticity; it is an emotional register capable of grounding the entire filmic experience. Hiligaynon works here not as an accessory but as an essential narrative instrument.

The film also shows a deliberate study of character dynamics, especially between the two central women in the story. Their personalities, conflicts, and emotional struggles are layered enough to avoid simplistic portrayals. They do not fall into familiar binaries such as the passive and the assertive, the vulnerable and the strong. Instead, their relationship reveals a deeper inquiry into how women carry fear, memory, and responsibility differently. For a young filmmaker, this sophistication is already notable. It suggests an understanding that character construction is not merely about showing emotions but about revealing internal contradictions.

However, this is also where a more rigorous critical lens becomes necessary. The film’s engagement with the folklore of the Mantiw does not fully translate into a visual language. While the film verbally explains the existence of the Mantiw, it does not render it meaningfully on-screen. In Visayan cultural history, the Mantiw is not an abstract idea. It is a visual-cultural presence, a haunting figure that lives through sightings, shadows, and sudden appearances. By relying heavily on verbal exposition instead of cinematic representation, the film misses an opportunity to harness the haunting potential of the folklore. This results in a narrative that acknowledges the myth without allowing the audience to experience it.

Another narrative concern lies in the protagonist’s identity as a journalist. Although the film introduces this profession as part of her background, it does not integrate it meaningfully into the story’s logic. Why is she a journalist? What truth is she pursuing? How does her profession shape her involvement with the film’s central conflict? The film offers no visual or narrative elaboration. When a character’s occupation suggests an orientation toward truth, risk, or inquiry, the storytelling must build that into the cinematic structure. Otherwise, it remains an unfulfilled conceptual detail rather than a functional narrative device.

Broadly, Hupas presents themes that remain underdeveloped within the short-film format. This is not a fault inherent to the short film form. Many short films, including those produced within Western Visayas, have proven that brevity can intensify clarity instead of limiting it. What is necessary is a more rigorous understanding of how pacing, imagery, and tension operate in confined durations. TM Malones’s Sin-o ang Tiktik? and Elvert Banares’s Impas are exemplary references because they demonstrate how local fear and uncertainty can be communicated primarily through images rather than through explanation. These films do not treat folklore and terror as narrative accessories but as visual logics.

For student filmmakers, the critique of Hupas is not meant to diminish the filmmaker’s effort. Rather, it is a call toward deeper study and bolder experimentation. Folklore-based storytelling requires a serious engagement with culture, memory, and the unspoken. It is not simply about inserting myths into contemporary narratives but about understanding the visual and emotional weight these myths carry. Sarabia’s work is promising, but it has not yet reached its fullest interpretive potential. What Hupas accomplishes is a strong first step that signals a readiness for more complex and mature forms of filmmaking.

To all emerging Ilonggo filmmakers, the challenge is not only to tell stories but to interrogate them. Choosing folklore as a narrative foundation demands responsibility. You are carrying fragments of cultural memory, and these fragments deserve careful handling, cinematic courage, and critical examination. The development of Ilonggo cinema depends on creators who are not afraid to question their own intentions, refine their methods, and embrace both failure and discovery.

The most important lesson is simple. Do not stop learning. Do not stop experimenting. And do not be afraid to create films that may not be fully understood at first. Cinema grows through risk, reflection, and persistence. If you continue to deepen your craft, the stories you tell will not merely exist. They will endure.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and educator at University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in both the Division of Professional Education and U.P. High School in Iloilo. He serves as an Executive Council Member of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts-National Committee on Literary Arts.