Emmanuel Pamaylaon
Directing
Biography
EMMANUEL PAMAYLAON (b. 2005) is a student filmmaker currently pursuing a BA Communication and Media Arts at the University of the Philippines Mindanao. He is the President of UP Salida, where he also served as the Festival Director for Salida Fest ’25, and is one of the regional staff writers for SINEGANG.ph. His work explores themes of queerness, memory, and resistance, drawing from personal experience and the broader cultural and political landscape of his region. His film Hindi Nawawala Sa Pagkawala ang mga Alaala recently won the Gold Award for the Narrative Category and the Kidlat Gottlieb Kalayaan De Guia Kapwa Award by National Artist Kidlat Tahimik at the 2026 Montañosa Film Festival in Baguio City. Continuing to hone his craft, he was also named a fellow of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) and the Filipino Screenwriters Guild (FSG) Regional Screenwriting Workshop in Malolos, Bulacan.
Known For
While trying to answer an end of semester evaluation paper, a communication student struggles to finish it without reflecting on her recent personal choices in life as she holds on to the dreams of graduating
Kahon
In a mist-shrouded mountain range, two young recordists search fragments of memory buried in static, silence, and soil. As they gather stories erased by conflict, an intimate resistance takes shape: quiet, tender, and defiant in the face of forgetting.
Memories Don't End in Disappearance
Fresca aspires to live with the dream of becoming a police officer and achieving a better life after losing her youth to extreme poverty. Fate unexpectedly makes a fool out of her when the dreams she craved the most led to her demise in the dark and cruel reality of the world in which she lives.