Filmmaker Gabriela “Gaby” Serrano has solidified her place as a bold force in contemporary Filipino cinema. Recently, she won Best Director in the Short Film category at Cinemalaya 2026 for Elenita Elena Elaine. Consequently, her work is drawing widespread praise for blending speculative fiction with deeply personal themes.
An Award-Winning Vision of Sleepless Manila
Set in the near future, Elenita Elena Elaine is a dystopian, Pinoy, call center, dream pop film. In this world, dreaming itself is outsourced to a sleepless Manila. Produced by Archipelago and supported by the 2025 Momo Film Co Distribution Grant, this dreampop sci-fi fable centers on a mother and daughter. On the night before the daughter leaves to work abroad, a fallen star from her mother’s past helps them say goodbye.
Furthermore, the non-linear story spans decades across three Filipino women, showing how mother and daughter see themselves in each other. Ultimately, as science fiction becomes alarmingly real, their shared dreams and voices remain unshakeable.
The Rise of a Genre-Bending Director
Born in 1996, Gaby Serrano crafts genre-warping films rooted in translation, mythology, and dreams. Her debut split-screen folk-thriller Dikit landed on the Criterion Channel after hit festival screenings. Meanwhile, her feature-in-development, Please Bear With Me, earned pitch awards at Bucheon, FNC Montréal, and the Southeast Asian Film Lab.
In addition, her surreal shorts Surface Tension and Elenita Elena Elaine premiered back-to-back in 2025.
Beyond directing, Gaby cuts all of her own films and served as a series editor on FX’s Spirit Award-nominated The Choe Show.
Personal Truths Behind the Film
In her Director’s Statement, Gaby shares how the narrative reflects her own life. Specifically, it stems from a time when both she and her mother worked remote outsourced jobs in Manila—her mother handling US call center support while Gaby edited an American TV 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.”
As a result of those exhausting late shifts, their shared struggles sparked a deeper connection and revealed their hidden aspirations:
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.”
Through Elenita Elena Elaine, Serrano transforms personal sacrifice and economic reality into a moving cinematic story. By blending speculative fiction with authentic human emotion, she gives voice not only to her family’s story, but also to millions of Filipinos striving to protect their dreams.
As many young Filipina directors wish for their art to be included in prestige festivals like Cinemalaya, her win also matters in terms of further encouraging Filipina directors to step on to the industry and freely merge and reinvent genres by composing slices of life in the lens of their truths.
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