Chelsea Lupkin
Laughter can be a welcome balm for grief, and Pacqui Pascual’s deeply personal film Awit Natin (Our Song) is a wonderful example of how to channel complex feelings into craft. Full of heart and humor, Pascual captures one Filipino family’s ability to find levity amid a series of unexpected tragedies – their father dies during their mother’s hospitalization. A short that proves that while life can throw anything at you, sticking together is what matters most – or rather, sticking to an absurd story to keep “Mom” together. A surreal exploration of family, Awit Natin reveals just how far one will go for those they love.
Drawing inspiration from his family’s own experience, Pascual recalled when his lola, or grandmother, suffered a brain aneurysm back in 2020 and how the whole extended family came together to be with her at the hospital. Just imagine, for a moment, that many people crammed into a tiny waiting room – a comical testament to how deeply loved she was. Unfortunately, like in the film, fate was not on their side. A few days into their stay, the family received word of Pascual’s grandfather’s passing in the Philippines and made the difficult real-life decision to keep the news a secret from their grandmother.
“All we could do was pray and laugh at how impossible it all seemed”
For Pascual, the ordeal blurred into a haze of air mattresses, hospital food, long nights, and uncertainty, all while feeling as though the world was crashing down around him and his family. “All we could do was pray and laugh at how impossible it all seemed,” he explained. “Writing this short, I think, was my way of trying to make sense of it all, of trying to process what had happened. During that time, I hadn’t really spoken to anyone outside my family about it for fear that it would make things more real.”
With the film, Pascual sought to literalize the absurdity of his experience, capturing his family’s collective emotions and offering an outlet for their pent-up grief and anxiety. It’s through this kind of artistic channeling that Awit Natin becomes a surreal exploration of how one very large family can overcome hardship – impromptu karaoke and all.
“I wanted this to be a love letter to immigrant families and to all families that are acquainted with grief and dysfunction” – Pascual on the aims of his film
But Pascual’s authenticity to himself and his roots didn’t stop there. Taking a grassroots crowdfunding approach, he was able to tap into an incredible Filipino and Asian American artistic community that he was previously unfamiliar with. In today’s social media–driven world, he was also able to use that community to reach beyond his network, even going as far as casting non-actors in the film through Facebook groups and subway flyers. “Bryan, who plays John (the bald guy) in the film, is a freelance masseuse who saw our post in a Filipino Facebook group, and Leona, who plays the eldest sister in the film, is a chef who saw our casting call on Instagram.” It’s this hands-on, community-driven approach to filmmaking that really gives Awit Natin such warmth and heart – not to mention the genuine comedic energy from folks willing to come together to make something special.
Before its online release today with Short of the Week, Awit Natin won the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Film at NFFTY 2025 and the Focus Features Best Narrative Film Award at Reelworks Film Festival 2025. Pascual is now working on developing the feature version of the short, while also working on a documentary companion piece titled Sunod-Sunod. “It follows the tale of my late grandfather, whose addiction to gambling cost him his fortune and his family. We paint a picture of him through the memories of my grandma and her children, and part of the film will consist of my family re-enacting those memories in a very surreal, stage-play style, so I’m very excited to continue shooting that.”
We look forward to seeing more personal work from Pascual and expect to be dazzled by his family’s stories in the future.