Vivi, a third-culture Filipina-American, travels to the Philippines to reconnect with her roots, but falls in with a group of Western eco-volunteers. When they scorn the customs of a remote mountain village, an ancient evil comes knocking.

Director's Bio: Jill Marie Sachs is a mixed Filipina-American writer-director who uses genre storytelling to challenge oppressive narratives and amplify voices too often overlooked. Her folk-horror short Taga, shot in the Philippines, is a 2025 CAPE Julia Gouw Short Film Award–funded project and an Official Selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Taga was honored with the Wes Craven Award for Best Horror Short at the Catalina Film Festival, and Jill recently won the Minerva Award for Female-Identifying Writer-Director-Producers at FilmQuest. Jill earned her MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute, and her BA from the University of Chicago. Her films and music videos have screened at festivals including HollyShorts, Hawai‘i International Film Festival, BendFilm, Cinequest, SLO, and FilmQuest.

When not behind the camera, Jill can often be found backpacking, wandering art museums, or chasing the uncanny—always searching for the strange and the sublime that spark her stories.

Virtual Screening Note: available to Arkansas viewers only