'Dayo' official entry to Metro Manila Film Festival

Dayo is a heartwarming story of overcoming one's fear and triumphing over adversity. It centres on the 11-year-old Bubuy (voiced by Nash Aguas) who is out to save his abducted grandparents from the land of Elementalia, a magical and mystical world that houses many of the Philippines' mythical creatures and other enchanted elements. Along the way, Bubuy meets Anna Manananggirl (voiced by Katrina Legaspi), a teen manananggal (a winged creature that can separate her torso from her lower body) who befriends and helps Bubuy in his quest to rescue his grandparents.

The creative team of Dayo consulted published literature on local mythology. The main reference is the book Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology by Maximo Ramos.

Dayo aims to reintroduce the other side of mythical creatures like the tikbalang, kapre, manananggal, and aswang by giving a new dimension to these often reviled creatures. "They are normally presented as predators or portrayed as villains," explains director Robert Quilao. "We created a new twist to these characters by transforming the scary manananggal into the friendly manananggol (defender) who acts as the guardian of Elementalia."

Quilao also shares that every step of the project has been a challenge for the team, "but the storyboarding stage was perhaps the toughest because it involved setting the mood and look of the whole animation."

The team already had talents in mind when they were working on the characters except for the lead roles of Bubuy and Anna which they held auditions for. For example, they already had Pokwang in mind for the manananggal yaya of Anna, hence the character sketch is loosely based on her. The film also features the voices of Michael V, Noel Trinidad, Nova Villa, Johnny Delgado, Peque Gallaga and Laurice Guillen.

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