Filipino film 'The Headhunter's Daughter' wins Short Film Grand Jury Prize in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival Awards

Filipino film "The Headhunter's Daughter" won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival's Awards.

The film was directed by Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan, an independent filmmaker born of Ifugao and Visayan descent,  featuring a strong performance by Ammin Acha-ur.

"The Headhunter's Daughter" follows the story of Lynn (Ammin Acha-ur) who leaves her family behind to traverse the harrowing roads of the Cordilleran highlands in the Philippines, to try her luck in the city as a country singer.

The director said as much as the film is a Loretta Lynn (Coal Miner’s Daughter) reference, it is their "own unique title for the film - and that’s all I had with me for many months."

"There are significant reasons as to why the sounds, the poetry, and the instruments of country music originated from enslaved African Americans, First Nation Peoples, Native Americans, and colonized Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific," Eblahan said.

"They sang songs of emancipation and dreamt of the freedom that awaits them - someday," he added. "Indigenous Igorots of the Cordilleras too sang songs of emancipation, and this is the thread that binds us all together.”

"The Headhunter’s Daughter" will screen online as part of the award winners’ lineup, on the Festival platform on Saturday, January 29 and Sunday, January 30. —JAB, GMA News.