Avid Liongoren: “The Journey to Animating the Philippines’ First Queer Superhero”

Scheduled for completion this year, the feature-length animated film “Zsazsa Zaturnnah” follows a queer heroine from the Philippines.The director reflects on the creative process, sharing behind-the-scenes stories from this project as well as from their previous feature films, “Saving Sally” and “Hayop Ka!.”

Speaker: Avid Liongoren (Philippines)

Avid Liongoren has made 2 feature films, several shorts, hundreds of commercials and thousands of artworks. He works in both live action and animated productions. He is the founder of Rocketsheep, a tiny indie animation studio made up of highly talented artists who specialize in animation and friendsheep. Their first feature, Saving Sally (2016), was made with the aid of the CNC French film grant. It went on to win the Jury Prize at Belgium's BIFFF, Portugal's Fantasporto and South Korea's SICAF as well as several other international awards. Their second film, Hayop Ka! (2020) competed at the prestigious Annecy Festival in France. In the several years that Avid has been pursuing film, he has yet to experience financial success so he is always willing to sell his internal organs to fund his projects.