Birdsong Announced: Filipino Found-Footage Horror Turns Birdwatching Into Environmental Dread

A birdwatching expedition becomes the setup for a new Filipino found-footage horror film in Birdsong, an upcoming feature from director Pam Miras and the newly launched Ilaya Ilaya Studios.

The project follows Kata, played by Kaila Estrada in her first lead film role. Kata is a former ornithologist who returns to a secluded mountain in search of a mythical bird while also trying to understand what happened to a former partner who disappeared there a decade earlier.

That premise was first outlined when filmmakers Antoinette Jadaone and Reign Anne De Guzman unveiled Ilaya Ilaya’s initial slate in late September. A more detailed presentation published on October 5 added the part that makes Birdsong especially interesting as horror: its creators are treating the mountain as something the characters do not fully own or understand.

Director Pam Miras described the project as a found-footage film concerned with horrors happening in Philippine mountains. Jadaone, meanwhile, teased a reversal in the act of birdwatching: the characters believe they are studying birds, but the film asks what happens if the birds are studying them instead.

That is a strong horror idea on its own.

It is also one that needs careful factual boundaries.

The filmmakers have not publicly identified the mythical bird as a specific documented creature from Philippine folklore in the sources reviewed for this article. Until they do, Birdsong should not be marketed as an adaptation of a named legend simply because its story includes a mythical bird and a mysterious forest.

What is Birdsong?

Birdsong is an upcoming Filipino found-footage horror feature directed by Pam Miras and written by Glenn Barit.

Irene Emma Villamor is attached as creative producer; Sinegang also identifies her and Antoinette Jadaone as co-producers. Jadaone is producing through Ilaya Ilaya Studios, the women-led production company she launched with producer Reign Anne De Guzman.

The project was announced as one of the studio’s first films.

According to Deadline and the more detailed October 5 presentation reported by Sinegang, Kata travels to a remote mountain to search for a mythical bird and for answers connected to the disappearance of her former boyfriend roughly ten years earlier.

The production has not announced a release date.

It is therefore better described as in development than as a film with a confirmed 2027 premiere, even though Ilaya Ilaya’s wider slate is being discussed as part of its future production plans.

The horror starts with observation

Birdwatching is based on patience.

You listen for calls.

You watch movement.

You learn patterns.

You try not to disturb what you are observing.

Birdsong takes that familiar relationship and turns it around.

At the Ilaya Ilaya presentation, Jadaone suggested that the characters’ assumption that they are the observers may be wrong. The birds may be learning the humans’ behavior instead.

The film does not need to reveal whether that idea is literal, supernatural or psychological for it to work as horror.

The imbalance is already unsettling.

Found-footage cinema depends on the belief that a camera records more than its operator understands. Birdwatching creates a similar tension: the watcher concentrates on a distant subject while the rest of the environment remains outside the frame.

Put those two activities together and every observation becomes a blind spot.

The film is using sound as more than background atmosphere

Creative producer Irene Emma Villamor emphasized that the birds in Birdsong are not silent.

That sounds obvious until you think about how horror often uses nature.

Forests become frightening when the normal soundscape disappears.

A sudden silence tells the audience that something has changed.

Birdsong appears interested in the opposite possibility.

The birds continue to make sound, and the filmmakers have described their songs as something the production intends to play with deliberately.

That gives the title a more literal function.

Birdsong is not only atmosphere.

It can become information.

A call might mean one thing to an ornithologist and another thing to an audience that gradually learns the film’s rules.

The important point is that the production has not yet published those rules.

No responsible summary should invent a secret language, supernatural bird hierarchy or monster behavior that the filmmakers have not confirmed.

The mountain is not just a generic “haunted forest”

Sinegang’s October 5 report ties the film’s development to environmental concerns raised directly by the filmmakers.

Miras said the project is interested in the real horrors surrounding Philippine mountains as well as its fictional horror. The report also places the conversation beside the danger faced by land and environmental defenders.

That context can be independently checked.

Global Witness reported on September 16, 2026 that at least 124 land and environmental defenders were killed worldwide in 2025. Its country-level count documented 12 killings in the Philippines, tied with Honduras and behind Colombia and Brazil in the published total. The organization also warned that defenders across Asia face criminalisation and intimidation.

Those numbers do not prove anything about Birdsong’s plot.

They explain why the filmmakers’ environmental framing should not be reduced to “spooky forest lore.”

The real-world context exists separately from the movie.

The filmmakers are also discussing drought and artificial intelligence

One of the stranger production details concerns the environment itself.

Production designer Yves Eero Francisco said his discussions with Miras and Barit involved memory, trauma and artificial intelligence. He also described the team considering forests deprived of water as part of an AI-related drought concept.

That does not mean Birdsong has been confirmed as a movie about an evil AI.

It does not mean a data center causes the supernatural events.

Those would be invented plot claims.

What is confirmed is that environmental depletion and artificial intelligence have entered the filmmakers’ visual-development conversations.

That is worth watching because it suggests the forest may be designed to look stressed rather than simply lush and picturesque.

The absence of water can become part of the horror language.

The mythical bird has not been identified

The most tempting mistake would be to search Philippine mythology for a supernatural bird and announce that the film must be using it.

There are many bird and bird-like beings in Philippine regional traditions.

That does not make any one of them Birdsong’s creature.

The sources reviewed for this article describe Kata as searching for a mythical or legendary bird, but they do not give that bird a traditional name.

Until Miras, Barit, Ilaya Ilaya Studios or another authoritative production source identifies it, the correct description is simply:

an unidentified mythical bird within the film’s fiction.

That distinction protects both sides of the story.

The movie remains free to reveal its own mythology.

Real Philippine traditions are not rewritten by guesswork.

A real endemic bird is not the movie’s mythical bird

The Philippines has extraordinary real bird diversity, including species found nowhere else.

That biological reality is part of what makes an ornithologist protagonist believable.

But real birds should not be recruited into the film’s mythology without evidence.

That is an important visual rule for covering this movie.

A photograph of a real endemic species can help readers understand the country’s bird life.

It cannot stand in as “the Birdsong monster.”

Why found footage fits the story

Pam Miras has said that part of the attraction is how uncommon found footage remains within Filipino horror filmmaking.

The format also creates an unusually good match with the protagonist’s profession.

An ornithologist already works through observation and documentation.

A found-footage protagonist does the same thing for a different reason.

Both point a device at the world and hope the recording will reveal something.

That overlap means the movie can make cameras, binoculars, microphones and field observation part of the story rather than just excuses for why somebody keeps filming.

It also gives the film a way to make sound as important as the image.

If a bird is heard but not seen, the camera cannot settle the question.

If a call repeats in the wrong place, the audience may notice before the characters do.

If the woods are being observed from more than one direction, the frame becomes evidence of its own limitations.

Those are possibilities created by the confirmed premise.

They are not confirmed plot events.

Birdsong already won an industry project award

The film is still unreleased, but it has already received industry recognition.

Deadline reported that Birdsong won the Kantana Sound Studio Asian Project Award at the Bangkok International Content Market 2026.

That does not guarantee production quality or distribution.

It does show that the project existed as more than a title on a studio announcement.

Sound is also an unusually relevant area for this particular movie to receive support.

A film built around birds, listening and found footage can live or die on what the audience hears outside the frame.

Ilaya Ilaya is positioning Birdsong as part of a broader women-led slate

Ilaya Ilaya Studios was launched by Antoinette Jadaone and Reign Anne De Guzman with an explicit emphasis on Filipino stories, women-led work and filmmakers working outside the easiest studio and festival pathways.

Birdsong is one of its flagship genre projects.

Jadaone has specifically discussed horror as a male-dominated genre when explaining why the studio wanted to work with Miras.

That industry context matters, but it should not become empty branding.

The useful question will be whether the production gives Miras the freedom to build the experimental found-footage film the team is currently describing.

For now, the project has the ingredients for something distinctive:

• a former ornithologist as protagonist;
• a decade-old disappearance;
• an unidentified mythical bird;
• found footage;
• a mountain environment;
• environmental anxiety;
• and a soundscape where the birds may be doing more than singing.

The strongest detail remains the simplest one.

The characters go into the mountain believing they are there to observe.

Birdsong asks whether they have misunderstood who is watching whom.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Birdsong?

Birdsong is an upcoming Filipino found-footage horror film about a former ornithologist who travels to a remote mountain searching for a mythical bird and answers about her former boyfriend’s disappearance a decade earlier.

Who directs Birdsong?

Pam Miras directs the film. Glenn Barit is the screenwriter, Irene Emma Villamor is creative producer, and Antoinette Jadaone is among the producers through Ilaya Ilaya Studios.

Who stars in Birdsong?

Kaila Estrada stars as Kata. The project is being presented as her first lead film role.

Is Birdsong based on a real Filipino legend?

The reviewed production sources call the object of Kata’s search a mythical or legendary bird, but they do not identify it as a specific documented Philippine folklore figure. It would be premature to claim a particular legend as the source.

What is the mythical bird in Birdsong?

Its traditional or fictional name has not been publicly confirmed in the sources reviewed for this article.

Is Birdsong an environmental horror film?

The filmmakers have explicitly connected the project to environmental concerns, Philippine mountain landscapes and threats faced by environmental defenders. How directly those themes shape the finished plot remains unconfirmed.

Why is Birdsong found footage?

Director Pam Miras has said she was attracted to the immediacy of found footage and to how unusual the format remains within Filipino horror filmmaking.

When is Birdsong coming out?

No confirmed release date has been announced.

Has Birdsong started filming?

The sources reviewed for this article establish the project as in development and discuss its creative team and visual planning, but they do not provide a verified principal-photography start date.

Has Birdsong won an award?

According to Deadline, the project received the Kantana Sound Studio Asian Project Award at the Bangkok International Content Market 2026.

Sources & further reading

• Sinegang: The Birds Are Watching in Ilaya Ilaya Studios’ Upcoming Found-Footage Horror Film Birdsong
• Deadline: Antoinette Jadaone launches Ilaya Ilaya and unveils Birdsong
• Rolling Stone Philippines: Antoinette Jadaone launches Ilaya Ilaya
• Global Witness: At least 124 land and environmental defenders killed globally in 2025
• Birds Canada / Avibase: Philippines checklist, Grey-backed Tailorbird endemism
• Wikimedia Commons: Northern Sierra Madre
• Wikimedia Commons: Grey-backed Tailorbird