MANILA, Philippines – Director Joey Agbayani’s animated short film “Lola” won the Best Animated Short award at the recently concluded 2011 Atlanta Horror Film Festival (AHFF).

As seen on the AHFF’s official website, “Lola” is among the 23 "horror, sci-fi, gore, mysteries, dark comedies, expERIEmentals, creepy, campy films of almost every genre" showcased in said film festival. The AHFF was held from Sept. 15-17 in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Lola” is a seven-minute animated film about an aswang – a popular dark creature in Philippine folklore – who was “hired as an actress by a very ambitious director who exploits her supernatural abilities to save on special effects and production cost.”

The description of the film on its Facebook page continued, “The director is very hard to please so several takes are made until the witching hour has come to pass. After 12 midnight, Lola transforms into her most monstrous state and all hell breaks loose. The ambitious and relentless director, however, still insist on getting this award winning shot despite being haunted by ‘Lola.’”

 “Lola” first graced the big screen as a finalist in the 2010 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.

In January this year, “Lola” was hailed as the Best Comedy Animated Short at the Giggleshorts 2011 International Comedy Short Film Festival held in Toronto, Canada.

Aside from these honors, “Lola” has also been included in the official selections of various international film festivals such as in last year’s AHFF; the Animacursed 2011 International Festival of Horror Animation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the Los Angeles Comedy Fest 2011; the New York City Horror Film Festival 2010; the 2010 Indy Horror Film Festival in Wisconsin; and in the 2010 A Night of Horror Film Festival in Sydney, Australia.

More, it was also a finalist at the 2010 Paranoia Horror & Sci-fi Film Festival in Los Angeles, California.