A Well in a Grove

Bernard Jay Mercado is a Filipino independent director, screenwriter, and editor. His short films have been screened in various international and local film festivals. His most recent work, "Man in the Cinema House" (2015), a black-and-white silent film comedy and part-installation art, part-performance art hybrid is the recipient of the 2015 UP Film Institute Likha Adarna Best Thesis Film Award. He also served as apprentice to screenwriters Roy Iglesias and Ricky Lee.

With an individualistic, unique, avant-garde filmmaking voice, Mercado dreams to reinvent Philippine Cinema by going back to the classics. His current focus in filmmaking are period films and love letters to cinema, biographical films of unsung heroes, and gangster films. He also aims to adapt to film the komiks of modern-day Filipino artists. And to one day go back to the art of experimental filmmaking.

Currently, he is working on his third feature-length screenplay, which would be his debut feature film, Kundiman.