Among the new generation of Filipino creatives making a name for themselves in local entertainment, Rae Red has built her reputation as a women director to watch over the past five years through genre work and a focus on strong, complex female characters—her films and shows, whether as a director or writer or both, have made waves locally.
But as she gears up for the release of her latest series, Red enters uncharted waters with her most ambitious project to date. Balaraw, which centers on a daughter traveling to the mysterious titular island in search of her missing mother, is poised to be one of the last major local TV shows dropping in 2026 with its impending release on Netflix. And at the heart of it all is Red, who couldn’t be prouder of a years-long journey finally seeing its conclusion.
Slight spoilers for Balaraw ahead.
RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Janine Gutierrez on Balaraw, Reuniting Rae Red, and Playing Sabina
Rae Red on the Origins of Balaraw
Rae Red is no stranger to the small screen. Her last directorial effort was 2023’s Roadkillers, a thriller series starring Nadine Lustre. Fast forward three years later, and she’s back with Balaraw, another thriller series for a major streaming platform and also featuring an A-list cast, including Janine Gutierrez, Charlie Dizon, and Agot Isidro. The road to getting there wasn’t always a smooth ride, though. The team went through constant revisions before Red felt satisfied with the story she wanted to tell. “Balaraw went through a lot of reiterations, but what stayed consistent throughout has always been the mother and daughter story,” she tells MEGA.
An early draft geared the show towards a more crime-oriented series, but that was scrapped. Red and Balaraw’s creative team then looked to shows such as Sharp Objects and Lost as inspiration for the narrative, especially in terms of one rooted in discovering dark family secrets. But she credits Balaraw’s co-creator Jericho Aguado for giving the team the spark for what Balaraw would eventually become. “Sa kanya nanggaling iyong parang seed of the story, which is a daughter whose mother has been missing for years suddenly finds this clue that leads her to this island.”
Red described shaping the right story as tedious given the scale and scope Balaraw would try to accomplish. “I think we had a year or more to develop this story because there’s a lot of mechanics and logic to the fantasy element of it.” That’s evident in the show’s ambition in both story and production.
There’s a lot that goes into making Balaraw’s world, which required creative thinking from the director, who was leading a project of this nature for the first time in her career. “We had to do a lot of problem solving, which is kind of what I like the most about directing.” While she had a budget to work with, Red had to find ways to film certain scenes and set pieces without the kind of Hollywood equipment used in shows she turned to for inspiration. It was during these situations where ingenuity, or a simple YouTube search, came into play.
“It really was a team effort of researching how this movie did it. My cinematographer did her own homework. Ako, I did my own research on the technicalities. Just really a lot of prepping because I think with a project of this scale, lalo na once you start shooting, parang ang hirap na magsingit ng time for maneuvering or pivoting to another direction. So I really needed to be sure of the direction.”
There are a lot of moving parts behind Balaraw that Red had to manage, but she never found a challenge she couldn’t solve, and with the help of her team, they pushed through and kept going to make the show we see today.
How Did Rae Red Design Balaraw’s Take on the Manananggal?
One thing that stands out about Balaraw is its world-building, especially when it transitions to the island. Balaraw feels both eerily quiet and lived-in, with humans and monsters inhabiting the world. And speaking of monsters, one of the most notable Sabina will face on the island is the manananggal, which takes on a slightly new form in this iteration. Philippine media has no shortage of different takes on the manananggal. Even DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island had its own spin on the creature.
For Red, her version carries the core ideas most would expect a manananggal to look like, but also non-negotiables she wanted to see with the practical effects. “It was important for me na it would still look human, na parang underneath all the monstrosity, you can see that it is a human,” she shares. Red wanted to design a monster that still retained a sense of humanity at the end of the day.
Once that puzzle was solved, the team moved on to crafting the monster elements, which proved more laborious than Red had anticipated when it came to making a manananggal that made sense anatomically. “It was a lot of brainstorming. Even down to where do you pick saan yung magiging joint ng wings. Like little things like that, I never thought it would be a long brainstorming session.”
Beyond the monsters and other sinister figures on the island, what also brings Balaraw to life are the women protagonists at the center of the story. Sabina (Janine Gutierrez), Bulak (Charlie Dizon), and Rebecca (Agot Isidro) color the show’s plot in their own way. As Balaraw peels back its layers, it reveals a surprisingly women-centric story, which to anyone who has seen a Rae Red production shouldn’t be surprised by.
From Babae at Baril, Si Chedeng at si Apple, Roadkillers, and more, Red has a penchant for centering genre stories with multi-dimensional women protagonists. And it’s this consistent theme that continues with Balaraw, where Red also takes it up a notch by featuring queer women and a lesbian couple as main protagonists.
“I think that’s something I’ve discovered about myself after making more and more, after putting out more and more works,” the writer-director says about how she approaches female characters. “I’m more drawn to women as protagonists maybe because mas alam ko yung struggles, mas alam ko yung nuances of a woman’s struggle. So at the beginning I wasn’t intentionally doing it. I think that’s just what came naturally.” She adds, “I do tend to pick women protagonists more solely because I know their nuances more. I know the nitty-gritty of it as opposed to writing stories for men.”
Balaraw: Representation in Many Forms
With years’ worth of work given to Balaraw, the show’s upcoming release has been somewhat emotional for Red. As much as she is proud to see her baby reach the finish line, she also knows that once it is out there in the world, it will now be up to the audience on how they take the show.
“I hope people would like it. I hope people would see the hard work everyone has put in sa project na ‘to. I’m trying not to think about that because at the end of the day, ngayon palang seeing how it has turned out, I’m already proud of it. So I think having the audience’s reaction is like a cherry on top. But right now palang, I’m very proud of the work we’ve done. I know everyone has given their all to this project.”
That effort is noticable all over the show, including the secrets, reveals, and revelations scattered throughout Balaraw’s six episodes that Red and her team spent a lot of time conceptualizing. Viewers don’t have to wait too long to experience those, but the director teases some of her favorite moments she’s looking forward to seeing the audience react to.
“There’s a big cliffhanger in episode three that kind of flips how you see everyone in Balaraw. So I’m excited to see how people would react to that scene.” Red also teases a flashback during the show’s second half that sheds light on the island’s past she thinks audiences should watch for.
Ultimately, once Balaraw drops on Netflix, Red will have no control over how it will be received. But already, regardless of what may happen, she remains proud of the cast and crew and all the effort they gave to the project. For her, Balaraw isn’t just another Filipino mystery thriller, but a series that aims to go above and beyond what most have come to assume Filipino TV shows can do.
“I think Balaraw is doing something that we haven’t seen yet in Philippine media. We have lesbian representation, we have a portrayal of aswang that we haven’t seen before.” It’s a win for viewers, local entertainment, and, in Red’s opinion, a win for local creatives in having the opportunity to do more. “I think just a project of this scale, it’s nice to see because I think Filipino works are always at the mercy of having limited budgets. But with this one, we really had the freedom to tell the story how we wanted to be told.”
All six episodes of Balaraw can be streamed on Netflix starting October 29.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Featured Image and Photos: Courtesy of Netflix
Frequently Asked Questions
Rae Red directs Balaraw, a Netflix thriller series about a daughter traveling to a mysterious island in search of her missing mother. The show stars Janine Gutierrez, Charlie Dizon, and Agot Isidro, and marks Red’s most ambitious project since 2023’s Roadkillers.
All six episodes of Balaraw are set to stream on Netflix starting October 29, 2026, positioning it as one of the last major Philippine TV releases of the year, capping off a years-long production journey for director Rae Red.
Rae Red spent over a year developing Balaraw with co-creator Jericho Aguado, who originated the story’s core premise of a daughter uncovering clues about her missing mother on a mysterious island, drawing inspiration from shows like Sharp Objects and Lost.
Rae Red’s version of the manananggal retains a visibly human quality beneath its monstrous form, a deliberate choice she made during a lengthy brainstorming process with her team to design the creature’s anatomy and practical effects for the Netflix series.
Yes, Balaraw includes queer women and a lesbian couple as central protagonists, continuing director Rae Red’s pattern of centering multi-dimensional women characters, as seen in her earlier works like Babae at Baril and Roadkillers.
