
Writing
Giancarlo Abrahan
Giancarlo Abrahan is a Filipino filmmaker, writer, translator, dramaturg, and educator. His first Cinemalaya entry was as co-writer of Transit (Best Film: Cinemalaya 2013). He also made his feature directorial debut at Cinemalaya with Dagitab (Best Director, Best Screenplay: Cinemalaya 2014). As a producer, his entries to the festival include Hilom (Best Short Film: Cinemalaya 2017) and Abogbaybay (NETPAC Award: Cinemalaya 2024). In 2026, he won the 22nd Cinemalaya's Best Director award for Mag-iina, which also won Best Film. Abrahan also directed Paki (Best Film, Cinema One Originals 2017) and Sila-sila (Best Film, Cinema One Originals 2019). He most recently co-wrote and produced i grew an inch when my father died (NETPAC Award, Rotterdam International Film Festival 2026). He is an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Film Institute, where he serves as Faculty Coordinator for Film, Theater, and Extension Services.
Acting credits
NRA young filmmaker is bent on recreating forgotten massacres from Philippine history, but when she begins shooting at a site where 1,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered, angry spirits are awakened and the lives of her team and the local villagers are put in peril.
Cinemartyrs
2025
NRA story focusing on a elite law school fraternity, it follows a week in the lives of a neophyte, a master, and a lawyer alumnus, and crosses the lines of money, power and connections within Manila’s society.
Kapatiran
2015
Behind the camera
5.0When their abusive father is murdered by a neighbour, two brothers must grapple with loss and liberty while navigating their friendship with the killer’s son. A deeply felt debut about the complexities of crime and inherited guilt.
i grew an inch when my father died
2026
5.0When their abusive father is murdered by a neighbour, two brothers must grapple with loss and liberty while navigating their friendship with the killer’s son. A deeply felt debut about the complexities of crime and inherited guilt.
i grew an inch when my father died
2026
NRNear the 40th day of her estranged father’s death, a woman returns to her family’s ancestral home where three generations of women are bound together by grief, madness, and evil thicker than blood.
The Mothering
2026
NRNear the 40th day of her estranged father’s death, a woman returns to her family’s ancestral home where three generations of women are bound together by grief, madness, and evil thicker than blood.
The Mothering
2026
6.0While the marriage of two professors is on the verge of falling apart, the woman is dragged into a scandal involving a young student. On the other hand, the man falls in love with the subject of his research—a deity that appears to him as the ghost of an old flame.
Sparks
2014
6.0While the marriage of two professors is on the verge of falling apart, the woman is dragged into a scandal involving a young student. On the other hand, the man falls in love with the subject of his research—a deity that appears to him as the ghost of an old flame.
Sparks
2014
7.3Days before graduation, two college best friends go on one last road trip where they settle how they really feel for each other.
I'm Drunk, I Love You
2017
6.0In Avenida, the lives of four men intertwine, searching for something. They all find what they are looking for in one woman named Aileen.
Want You with All My Hypothalamus
2018
7.0Against the backdrop of the Typhoon Yolanda, a mother and her son struggle for survival and deal with absurdity of fate, sustained by the hope that they carry, and what is lost and gained.
Whether the Weather Is Fine
2021
10.0An 80-year old woman decides that she will be an old maid. But when the woman tries to leave her husband for sixty years, their children forbid their parents to separate.
Please • Care
2017
10.0An 80-year old woman decides that she will be an old maid. But when the woman tries to leave her husband for sixty years, their children forbid their parents to separate.
Please • Care
2017
10.0A 30-year old man who returns home to Manila is forced to confront his old life, his old friends, and his ex-boyfriend at their high school reunion where the drama of the past and the present collide.
Sila-Sila
2019
10.0A 30-year old man who returns home to Manila is forced to confront his old life, his old friends, and his ex-boyfriend at their high school reunion where the drama of the past and the present collide.
Sila-Sila
2019
5.8Moises, a single Filipino dad, comes home to celebrate his son's fourth birthday and learns that the Israeli government is going to deport the children of foreign workers.
Transit
2013
NRISLANDS explores a cinematic journey of two astronauts. As they enter Earth’s atmosphere the structure transforms. The spacecraft becomes the meteor from a myth of a tribesman; it triggers an old lady’s memory of a lover from her past. As these diverse characters converge in a plane of reality, we confront a particular form of gravity we covertly feel—falling in love.
Islands
2013
NRThe wife of a middle-aged stone miner bears child while he is in a relationship with an enchanted black figure. A fettered commitment to an unborn child he already loves and a wife he despises torments the man. The enchanted lover offers him uncertain seduction. And he must choose, just as every dark creature must only pick between painful fates.
The Weight
2014
NRThe wife of a middle-aged stone miner bears child while he is in a relationship with an enchanted black figure. A fettered commitment to an unborn child he already loves and a wife he despises torments the man. The enchanted lover offers him uncertain seduction. And he must choose, just as every dark creature must only pick between painful fates.
The Weight
2014
NRThree brothers deal with grief after the death of their mother. The eldest brother crosses the sea to retrieve her ashes, while the middle brother works to buy a vase and informs their youngest sibling who remains unaware.
Shoredust
2024
9.0In a fishing village that’s been ravaged by a strong typhoon, the bond of twin brothers is disrupted by another young boy. Hilom follows the journey of the brothers, Andres and Gael, as they find healing against the harsh landscape of an island that’s also trying to recover.
Still
2016