MANILA, Philippines—Christopher Gozum, who works as a videographer and editor in an eye hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, won two top prizes in the recent Digital Lokal competition of the Cinemanila International Film Festival.

“Anacbanua,” billed as the first Pangasinense film, won for Gozum the Best Director and Lino Brocka Grand Prize trophies. To think he started shooting with only P80,000—his cash prize as the Ishmael Bernal Award winner for “Surreal Random MMS,” an experimental short film he did in last year’s Cinemanila.

“I adjusted the story, its style and other production aspects to suit that budget,” said Gozum. “I had to finish shooting in four days.”

Lead actress Che Ramos recalled that she worked well with Gozum, though it was their first collaboration.

Call time would be set at 2 or 3 a.m., but Ramos didn’t mind. “He worked quickly. He knew what he wanted,” she said.

Armed with a Canon HV 30 camera, Gozum captured the varied terrain of Pangasinan before typhoon “Pepeng’s” devastation. “The landscape that defines the province is well-represented—from the Agno River to the Zambales and Cordillera Ranges,” he said.

“Anacbanua,” which chronicles the homecoming of a Westernized poet, is told through visuals and Pangasinan poems called anlong. The film also serves as a tribute to Gozum’s late grandmother Marcela Quijalvo, a hilot, or traditional healer.

“It’s important to tell this story because it’s a way of reclaiming what we have lost in our consciousness and identities as Pangasinenses,” Gozum said. “Non-Tagalog languages and cultures have been marginalized against the backdrop of a ‘national language.’”