Chona Mangalindan

Chona M. is a Filipino documentary filmmaker and founder of AMAYA Film Productions. Her work explores how intimate lives are shaped by larger social, legal, and political systems, often through long-term observational filmmaking.

Trained in photography in Tokyo as a Monbukagakusho Scholar, she developed an approach grounded in close observation, gesture, atmosphere, and the emotional weight of everyday life. She is drawn to contradiction, finding humor and absurdity alongside more difficult realities.

Her debut feature documentary, Untying the Knot, has been filmed over five years in the Philippines and follows three women whose lives unfold alongside the country's long-running struggle to legalize divorce. Chona has filmed much of the project herself, building sustained relationships with her subjects and allowing the story to evolve over time.

Her work has received support from the Hot Docs CrossCurrents Documentary Fund, DMZ Docs, the Hot Docs First Look Award, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, ARTE France, and Firelight Media. She is also a 2026 Sundance Institute | The Asian American Foundation Scholar.