Art and nature will heal you at this free mountaintop film festival
“That feeling of being restored,” says filmmaker and festival director Jennifer Maliwanag, “of remembering that life doesn’t have to move so fast, is what planted the idea for Santa Maria Music and Film Festival.”
Now in its third year, the festival returns on Dec. 6, featuring films from 17 countries in a beautiful open-air cinema in Laguna, along the Sierra Madre ridgeline. The films, curated from a year-long selection process, hail from Japan, Korea, Italy, France, the US, the Philippines, and more.
Maliwanag built the open-air cinema from her family’s mountain property in 2023. Before, whenever her friends came to visit, she noticed they would go home feeling lighter and calmer. That’s when she thought, “What if we opened this mountain so other people could recharge too?”
“At first, we were honestly just thinking about letting people camp or spend the day there,” she tells Young STAR. “But around that time, I was taking a film class, and my professor would always tell me, ‘I like how you position the story, your lens, your framing. You have an eye. You see what others can’t.’ That stuck with me. It made me look at our place differently and imagine how this little mountain space could become an open-air cinema, a gathering spot, a home for stories, and a place for people to recharge.”
The director had been winning a few international festivals then, which fueled her desire to extend the space for fellow filmmakers. “I’ve always believed that when you’re in the right environment, the right people will recognize your worth,” Maliwanag continues. “So I wanted to create that kind of environment for others, a place where artists feel seen and welcomed without having to fit into a traditional mold.”
The festival currently has 39 finalists chosen through quarterly selection, and only the final winners among them will be screened during the festival. These finalists are a vibrant mix of narrative films, documentaries, experimental work, and cultural pieces.
This is also why SMMFF remains free for everyone, regardless of the logistical challenges. “We want it to feel like a space that genuinely belongs to the people, artists, families, students, locals, everyone. So many great talents go unseen simply because they don’t have access to the right spaces, and we want to change that,” says Maliwanag.
‘Setting aside time for art and nature isn’t escape, but how we refill, how we stay human, and how we keep going,’ says SMMFF director Jennifer Maliwanag.
“For us, it’s simple: art and talent should be shared, not gated. And the more people who get to experience it, the better.”
It is this same community, after all, that helped SMMFF get back on its feet after the recent Typhoon Uwan. “It felt like the whole mountain was wiped clean. Trees fell, pathways disappeared, and the place looked nothing like the home we’d built our memories and our festival on,” the festival director recalls. “For a moment, we weren’t sure if we could still push through. The damage was heavy, and emotionally, so were we.
“But then people started showing up. Our workers were literally sliding down the muddy trail, still laughing as they carried materials back up because cars couldn’t enter. Volunteers, neighbors, and friends helped clear debris, rebuild pathways, and even turn fallen branches into art materials or parts of the setup. Some sponsors even sent donations.”
There were days when the soil was too soft for cars, and the team would carry materials by hand from the foot of the mountain. They would even walk barefoot when the road was too muddy. “But seeing the community come together reminded us why we do this,” Maliwanag adds. “Our mountain is part of the Sierra Madre. Storms will always be part of its story, and now, part of ours, too.”
Art and nature, for Maliwanag, are all the more crucial in heavier, more uncertain moments like this. “People were tired in ways that didn’t always show, partly because some of the weight didn’t just come from nature, but from the systems around us, too,” she says. “When people come up the mountain, you can literally see them exhale… they sit on the grass, watch a film, listen to music, feel the wind.”
“Setting aside time for art and nature isn’t escape, but how we refill, how we stay human, and how we keep going.”
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The Santa Maria Music and Film Festival will be held on Dec. 6 at Santa Maria, Laguna. Free tickets and festival guidelines can be found at santamariafestival.com.
