CATEGORIES
CATEGORIES
ELENITA ELENA ELAINE
ELENITA ELENA ELAINE
by Gabriela Serrano
19:39 MINUTES | Sci-Fi, Drama | R-13 | Strong Language, Sex, GAD
FILM SCHEDULE
CAST
Agot Isidro, Gabby Padilla, Mariana Serrano
PRODUCTION
DIRECTOR – Gabriela Serrano
SCREENPLAY – Gabriela Serrano, Mariana Serrano
EDITOR – Gabriela Serrano
CINEMATOGRAPHER – Kara Moreno
LPS; PRODUCTION DESIGNER – Pauline Olarte
ORIGINAL MUSICAL SCORE – Andrea Ramos
SOUND DESIGNERS – Dawr Toñacao, Keith Deligero
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS – Kim Jones, Gabie Tanjutco, Mike Marks
PRODUCERS – Gale Osorio, Keith Deligero
PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Archipelago, Studio Dalaga, Key Pictures, Lunari Global, Membrana Pictures
LOGLINE
In dreamless Manila, a fallen star appears on the eve of a woman’s departure to help her and her mother say goodbye.
SYNOPSIS
A pop idol prepares for what will become her final TV performance. A young graduate packs up her room to go work abroad. A call center agent lets her voice fade against a wall of noise. On this long night, in a reality where people have ceased to dream, three women’s mundane routines and subconscious worlds collide – revealing wishes, regrets, and versions of themselves that they keep from one other. Will dawn bring more silence, or a shimmering song?
FILMMAKER’S PROFILE
Gabriela Serrano is a filmmaker raised between Las Piñas City, Laguna, and rural Texas. Her films draw from language, mythology and dreams to examine longing in Filipina spaces. Her debut short, the silent folk-horror Dikit, won Best Director and the Special Jury Prize at Cinemalaya in 2021. It was acquired by the Criterion Channel after screening globally at the Singapore International Film Festival, Queer East London, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and other international art venues and festivals.
Her surreal drama Surface Tension (co-directed with her sister, Mariana Serrano) won Best Short at the QCShorts Lokal at QCinema in 2025. Elenita Elena Elaine, supported by the Momo Film Co Distribution Grant, is a companion piece to Please Bear With Me, her call center-set sci-fi feature-in-development, which has been pitched and awarded at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN), Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) Montréal, and the Southeast Asian Film Lab.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I’ve always been told how much I look and sound like my mother. One day, I found myself mirroring her in a completely new way when we both became outsourced workers. She got a job handling customer support for a US call center, while I was hired to edit episodes for an American television 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. 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.
A non-linear yet decades-spanning portrait of three Filipino women, Elenita Elena Elaine explores the phenomenon of mother and daughter seeing themselves in each other – their past, present, and future merging in the spaces that confine them.
In this fast-changing world, where things once deemed science fiction are appearing alarmingly real and all-consuming, what has remained unshakeable are our voices and our dreams, shared with those who have seen and heard us from the very beginning.
FILM STILLS
BEHIND THE SCENES
