Bernardo Carpio Project

Bernardo Carpio struggles to free himself from his chains, while he also duels with the mysterious and powerful “salamangkera” (sorceress) who led him to his entrapment under “The Two Clashing Boulders” in Montalban.

This adaptation helmed by Rianne Hill Soriano depicts two beings fighting each other as the bigger force above them, the Spanish government, manipulates them both.

Project Background

With the support of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the main funding agency for the film, confirmed in January 2020, the turn of events of the pandemic led to a more solid attachment to the story: realizing how this adaptation of the epic focuses on Bernardo Carpio being locked down, which apparently reflected the people’s plight of being forced to stay inside their homes, unable to pursue their plans and passions due to a world in crisis.

This further grounded the project to keep up with the limitations of working in a completely virtual setting. For the artists involved, pursuing this project offered a means to bring more value to their lives in a pandemic world.

The motion-comics animation treatment utilized for the film expanded to a full-blown comics project with augmented reality (AR) component through the Innovation Grant from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). This was in line with the team’s long-term goal to produce a series of original Filipino content inspired by Philippine literature using new media technologies.