Mervin Malonzo
Director
Manny Angeles
Producer
Philippines
Country
Logline
Ella Arcangel, a 12 year old girl from the slums of Manila, succeeds her grandmother in battling supernatural entities that trouble the community. As Ella grapples with her new role, a monster surfaces and becomes the likely culprit to the death of the family of her playmate. Meanwhile, the government’s drug war presses on – making Ella question who she’s really up against and who the real monsters are.
Mervin Malonzo
Mervin received the National Book Award for his Philippine mythology-based comic Tabi Po which was also turned into a TV series in 2017. He has published around twenty comics and illustrated books which are mostly in the horror and supernatural genre.
He also regularly produces animations for various multinational brands & ad agencies. His animated short Ella Arcangel: Lullaby in the Dark won the top prize in Animahenasyon Festival 2020 and the Best Director Award in Paris International Film Festival 2022.
He also manages Haliya Publishing with his wife where they bring to market the works of various independent comics creators.
Manny Angeles
Manny is a pandemic born filmmaker. His first film as producer is called You Animal! The Nimfa Dimaano Story, an animation film he wrote back in 2015. 5 years later, it made it to Netflix (Asia) and then to Annecy and Fantasia the year after. A lot of firsts for Philippine animation. As far as producing films is concerned, Manny feels he is an on-the-job trainee. To help navigate the film world, he draws from his 20-year experience as owner of a boutique agency/production company called Twenty Manila – with the top corporations in real estate, banking, and telco as some of his clients. He was also the director of Art Angel in GMA 7 TV for 7 years – an arts and crafts show for children. Today, whilst juggling corporate and advertising videos and writing new scripts, he is producing his second animation film Ella Arcangel: Ballad of Tooth and Claw.