Writer, Virtual Assistant, Graphic Designer

Overview

Looking for full-time work (8 hours/day)

at $1.70/hour ($300.00/month)

AB Communications Arts, Honorary Fellowship in Creative Writing

Last Active

November 14th, 2014 (3682 days ago)

Member Since

November 13th, 2014

Profile Description

Gutierrez Mangansakan II is a writer and filmmaker from Mindanao, southern Philippines.
Mangansakan started his career in journalism in 1994 as a news correspondent for the now-defunct Mindanao Gazette while studying Mass Communication at the Ateneo de Davao University. He later became the associate editor of the newspaper’s lifestyle magazine supplement, Grandeur.
For nearly twenty years, Mangansakan has obtained vast experience in covering and writing stories across Mindanao, especially on peace and development efforts in areas that are heavily affected by armed conflict. His articles have appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila Times, Philippine Star, Manila Standard, Manila Bulletin, and Malaya.
He wrote a column, This Blessed House, for the independent news agency MindaNews from 2005 to 2008. Mangansakan describes this phase in his writing life as a transition period from the rigid formality of journalism to a fluid, organic approach to nonfiction writing. His literary works have appeared in journals and magazines, including ANI 33, Off Deadline, Banaag Diwa, Philippine PEN Peace Anthology, and Dagmay. In 2007 he edited Children of the Ever-Changing Moon, an anthology of essays by young Muslim writers (Anvil).
During his residency at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (IWP) in 2008, Mangansakan wrote the screenplay of his debut feature film, Limbunan (The Bridal Quarter). It would take two more years for him to produce and direct the film, in 2010, as a finalist of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival. Limbunan became the closing film of the Critics Week Section of the 67th Venice International Film Festival which is widely regarded as the second most prestigious film festival in the world. The film has been screened in more than a dozen international film festivals, and has garnered six nominations in the 2011 Gawad Urian including best film, best direction, best screenplay, and best sound design.
Mangansakan is considered a pioneering Mindanaoan filmmaker whose filmography— starting from his prizewinning short documentary, House Under the Crescent Moon, in 2001, to his video installation works— has shaped a new way the Filipino audience imagines Muslim Mindanao.
In 2011 he directed his sophomore film, the allegorical Cartas de la Soledad (Letters of Solitude). It won best Asian film in the 7th Jogjakarta NETPAC Asian Film Festival in 2012. His third film, Qiyamah (The Reckoning), won Grand Jury Prize and Best Artistic Achievement in the inaugural Sineng Pambansa National Film Festival in 2012. It was cited by the Young Critics Circle of the Philippines as the best film of 2012. It also bagged the awards for best editing and best sound design. His latest work, The Obscured Histories and Silent Longings of Daguluan’s Children, bagged the best film and best director prizes at the 14th Cinemanila International Film Festival.
Mangansakan has researched and written extensively on the culture and history of Muslim Mindanao for which he is a well-sought consultant and lecturer here and abroad. For his efforts to preserve and nurture the rich traditions of his Maguindanaon ancestry, he was named Defender of Heritage in the 2005 edition of the Fookien Times Philippines Yearbook.
Recognizing his genius and dedication to the cultural education of his people, Kularts –an organization in California devoted to the promotion of Filipino-American cultural dialogue— named him Philippine Master Artist in Residence in 2005. He became Artist-In-Residence of the Asian Art Museum (Chong Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture) in San Francisco, CA, that same year.