Filmmaker and De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde Multimedia Arts alumna Gabriela “Gaby” Serrano got another Best Director award in the Short Film category of the 22nd Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, this time for her short film “Elenita Elena Elaine.”
The recognition highlights her distinct voice in contemporary Philippine cinema and underscores the growing impact of bold, genre-expanding storytelling.
“Elenita Elena Elaine” is a dystopian sci-fi drama set against a sleepless, dreamless Manila where dreaming itself is outsourced. Produced by Archipelago, Studio Dalaga, Key Pictures, Lunari Global, and Membrana Pictures, and supported by the 2025 Momo Film Co Distribution Grant, it explores mother-daughter dynamics, economic displacement, and personal sacrifice.
The narrative shifts across time to follow three interconnected Filipino women: a pop idol, a young graduate preparing to go abroad, and a call-center agent whose voice slowly fades under late-night shifts.
Serrano drew directly from her own life for the project, reflecting on a period when she and her mother worked remote, outsourced jobs side by side in their living room. While her mother handled foreign call-center support, she served as a series editor on FX’s Spirit Award-nominated series “The Choe Show.”
We worked alongside each other from our living room in Manila, and though our new jobs sustained our household, the darker sides of globalization took root inside our home. Endless night shifts, underpaid labor, and cultural gaps started draining us both of time, sleep and hopes for brighter futures, the filmmaker shared.
Amidst this, we began to confide in one another dreams we had each put on the backburner: my aspirations to direct films someday, and her teenage wish to be a singer. Like millions in the Philippines, our true voices were rendered silent in order to survive our neocolonial economy, she added.
The shared strain of grueling hours and underpaid labor brought forward their suppressed ambitions, shaping the tender, speculative foundation of the film.
Serrano’s work routinely weaves folklore, surrealism, and local socio-economic realities. She previously won Best Director and the Special Jury Prize at Cinemalaya 18 for her split-screen folk-thriller “Dikit,” Best Short Film at QCinema’s QCShorts Lokal for the surreal short “Surface Tension” which she co-directed with her sister Mariana in 2025.
Serrano collaborated again with her sister, co-writer, and actor Mariana, together with executive producers Kim Jones, Gabie Tanjutco, and Mike Marks, producers Gale Osorio and Keith Deligero, cinematographer Kara Moreno, production designer Pauline Olarte, sound designers Dawr Toñacao and Deligero, musical scorer Andrea Ramos, and Mariana’s co-actors Agot Isidro and Gabby Padilla.
Serrano is currently developing her feature-length sci-fi project “Please Bear With Me,” a companion piece to “Elenita Elena Elaine” which also expands on similar themes of call-center labor, and earned pitch recognitions at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN), Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) Montréal, and the Southeast Asian Film Lab.
Serrano’s latest win at Cinemalaya reinforces a rising path for Filipina filmmakers pushing genre boundaries, proving that personal truths can redefine the scope of local cinema.
