The tenderness of the salt-tinged breeze from the Sibuyan Sea makes the sunset at Baybay Beach in Roxas City feel like an invitation to slow down. Against the bleeding horizon, the conversations at the table about life and career drift toward something rarely celebrated in the creative industries: rest.
Fresh from winning Best Short Film at the Gawad Urian Awards 2025, filmmaker Maria Kydylee “Kyd” Torato offers an unexpected answer to the question of what comes next. She says she has no immediate plans to make another film, even in an industry that often measures worth by the constant demand to produce more.
Kyd, a Capizeña filmmaker who champions regional stories, believes that the work of women in cinema deserves to be recognized in ways that go beyond awards and ticket sales.
For her, the value of their work is found in the persistence of women who continue to tell stories despite limited opportunities, heavy societal expectations, and the invisible labor that often comes with being both an artist and a woman.
“I believe it is important to celebrate and uplift the work of female filmmakers because aside from the many roles they play in society – being a mother, sister, etc. – they still choose to tell stories that matter. Their contribution to the landscape of cinema goes beyond the screen. It normalized how society should respect women, laws were formed to protect women, and little girls were inspired to become more than what they are being told,” she said.
Representation, according to her, deeply matters, especially at the local and regional level because female filmmakers have so much to say about their lived-experiences and struggles that intersect with their femininity and freedom.
“Most of the time, struggling creatives don’t have much room for self-discovery and maybe we can blame that on our doomed economy. Yet, even within our own circumstances, I hope we can carve ways for us to nourish our bodies, minds, and spirits. Because maybe, just maybe, prioritizing ourselves can be our way to reclaim our freedom and autonomy in this society that continues to commodify us and our creativity,” she responded when asked about how women in the creative industries might reclaim productivity, rest, and artistic expression on their own terms.
Many might assume that after winning a prestigious Gawad Urian trophy, the next step is to immediately produce another film to maintain momentum in a highly competitive industry. But Kyd continues to resist the prevailing culture where rest is often stigmatized or misunderstood.
“For me, rest is a form of protest. Especially if you choose it intentionally, without the pressure of producing again in mind. We are currently living in a society where hustling and producing more is being rewarded, while resting is seen as being stagnant. As filmmakers, we should reverse our fear of being left behind. It’s okay to be left behind.
Because being left behind can also mean staying in a place where you can finally hear yourself again and find what you really want to do. We are all so used to consuming other people’s opinions – from our producers, fellow-filmmakers, film critics, and audiences – that we forget to listen to the most important voice of all – our own,” she said.
The growing understanding of rest as a form of resistance gained wider attention when Tricia Hersey, the New York Times best-selling author and founder of the Nap Ministry, began popularizing the phrase “Rest is Resistance”.
For Hersey, rest is a deliberate act of reclaiming one’s sense of worth from systems that constantly demand productivity.
Rooted in a long lineage of Black, feminist, and liberationist thought, the idea reframes
rest, care, and embodiment as forms of political refusal.
For many women filmmakers navigating demanding creative industries, embracing rest may feel unfamiliar, but it pushes against cultures that equate exhaustion with hard work and burnout with success. Choosing to pause and consciously step away from relentless productivity allows them to cultivate their creativity and redefine what it means to live and create freely.
“Eventually, you will get bored, and you will have the urge to move forward again. But this time, with a different perspective about life and everything around you,” Kyd said.
Kyd’s love for storytelling started early. In Grade 5, she joined campus journalism as both a news and editorial writer. That same year, she stepped onto a different stage – declamation – eventually competing and winning at the national level. Even then, Kyd had already seen the value of storytelling by writing her own scripts and using her voice to say something meaningful in front of others.
In high school, that curiosity found a home in Kasanag, the official student publication of Capiz National High School. Writing in Filipino allowed her to tell stories closer to the language of home and community. She began to discover that storytelling was not limited to writing alone and ventured into visual storytelling as layout artist.
Twice, she represented her school in collaborative desktop publishing at the National Schools Press Conference where she learned the discipline of creative work and the teamwork needed to bring a story to life.
Looking back, Kyd realized that those early years were less about competition and more about discovering many ways a story could be told. The journey of finding one’s voice as a storyteller and acquiring creative sensibilities through the careful arrangement of text and images allowed her to develop a path that would later lead her to filmmaking.
Alongside her growth as a filmmaker, Kyd’s way of choosing which stories to tell has also deepened and evolved. After her first film “Si Oddie” was shortlisted among the 12 finalists in the short film category of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival in 2022, she began to approach storytelling with a clearer sense of purpose, rooted in the lives and experiences of the communities where she belongs.
Now, she gravitates toward stories that explore local tales from Capiz, fragments of folklores, and everyday cultural traditions that become living narratives on screen and shape the soul
of the community.
“I believe what makes a story deserving to be produced and be seen on the big screen is not measured by how complex it is, but by how truthful and honest it is. Even a simple story like “Bisan Abo, Wala Bilin” can unpack many layers of social issues that have been swept under the rug for many years. As a filmmaker, it is our role to shed light on this and spark conversation among our audiences,” she said.
Her award-winning film, “Bisan Abo, Wala Bilin”, reflects her mission to highlight local narratives. The story grew out of her time spent listening to local faith healers. The film follows a story of a little girl who fears their healing tree might vanish when it’s needed the most, as an unfamiliar skin disease begins to spread through their close-knit village.
In the film, the villagers turn to an ancient tree long believed to hold healing powers.
People exchange names and tie clothes on its branches. At the center of the story is Sabel, a child who watches her world shift when her mother falls ill with the mysterious disease. She witnesses how her community grapples with an impending displacement imposed by heartless authorities and the painful loss of their sacred tradition.
The film also carved its own path across various film festivals and grants. It was first supported as a grant winner of the iNDIEGENIUS Project Lab. The film would later earn 2nd Best Short Film at the Sinag Maynila Film Festival and Best Ngilngig Philippine Short at the Ngilngig Asian Fantastic Film Festival, before reaching international audiences as an official selection of the Blue Chair Film Festival, formerly known as the Luang Prabang Film Festival. Yet for Kyd, these recognitions point her back to the people and stories that shaped her as an artist, especially those from her hometown Capiz.
“I don’t want to be defined by my awards and recognitions, but I want to be remembered for how I lived my life and the values I carry. Humility and empathy are very important to me. Hence, I don’t see my trophies as badges of superiority among my fellow filmmakers. Yet, they do remind me of the responsibility I have to my own community in Capiz and the stories they entrust me to tell,” she said.