Chloe Fuerte

"I Don't Eat Balut"

“I Don’t Eat Balut” is a 2-minute 2D animated short that follows a young girl who is shamed for cracking open a balut, a fertilized duck egg, before she ultimately throws it away triggering a sequence of transformations as she slowly morphs into a mananaggal, a vampire from Filipino folklore. The film acts as a surreal visual exploration of the beautiful yet messy process of attempting to connect and reconcile with the parts of a culture one may have previously denied or been averse to through its references to the magical girl transformation sequences of anime and integration of imagery from Filipino diasporic culture.The title “I Don’t Eat Balut” references the common aversion to balut many Filipinos have due to its unsettling appearance. This infamous duck egg is featured alongside the manananggal, a vampiric creature known for feeding on fetuses and splitting its body in half. Though seemingly unrelated they act as symbols of death, growth and female autonomy in contrast to their disturbing, visceral nature making them effective tools for subverting tropes of the magical girl genre.

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