Festival Note
A documentary crew covers the Philippine Giant Monster Defense Institute’s Mighty Robo V program, the Philippines’ only line of defense against Giant Monsters. The crew captures the struggles of Institute, revealing that maybe the wrong people were hired for the job.
Miko Livelo is a Filipino film and TV director. After studying Fine Arts majoring in Advertising from the University of Sto. Tomas, he took up Film at the Asia Pacific Film Institute (APFI).
He started his career as a motion graphics artist and soon directed his first film, Blue Bustamante (2013), his entry to the Cinema One Film Festival, where it won Best Production Design. The film premiered internationally at the Osaka Asian Film Festival.
In 2014, together with filmmaker Joel Ferrer, Miko established the company PUNCHKICK, where he wrote and directed series, ads and films. His most famous series is Tanods, a digital series under D5 Studio about a ragtag group of neighborhood watch. He also directed Sa Ngalan ni Ultimate Warrior (In the Name of Ultimate Warrior), a short film for the QCinema International Film Festival 2014 about a kid’s love for wrestling.
He joined The Ideafirst Company shortly after and directed #ParangNormal Activity (2016, TV5) and I Love You To Death (2016, Regal films). He recently finished directing two films, a friendship-comedy film, ‘Tol (2019) and Unlilife (2019), a fantasy-comedy adventure film.
His filmmaking is based on his personal experiences wrapped in humor, family and love for Japanese pop culture.
Mihk Vergara is a Filipino writer and director for tv, digital and film since 2004. While having dipped his hands in advertising, music video, tv and film it is his love for telling stories that continues to drive him forward in whatever medium he finds himself expressing himself in.
Over the course of his career he has served as series planner and writer for the mystery thriller show Jasmine for the Philippine Network TV5, head writer for Project Runway Philippines Season 1, series planner, episode writer and director on the cult underground show, Rakista, and director for the children’s show, Alex and Amie.
A fan of collaboration, he has co-directed two shorts with his fellow filmmakers: the drama-comedy, Ang Maskot with Chris Costello and the special effects comedy, Carpioman with Miko Livelo. He has also helped adapt the South Korean drama, Tunnel, for the Indonesian market under Base Entertainment with Zig Marasigan and Tanya Yuson.
His first feature film, Patintero: Ang Alamat ni Meng Patalo, won the Audience Choice and Gender Sensitivity awards when it was released in 2015 at the QCinema International Film Festival and was screened at the
Special Programs, New Action! Southeast Asia section of the Osaka Asian Film Festival in 2017. His latest work is writing for the Netflix Original Anime Series, Trese.