Sundance Film Festival 2026 – Taga easily could have veered into B movie creature feature territory. However, the film’s exploration of identity gives it a heft and weight that makes it a mighty and memorable short film. Writer/director Jill Sachs crafted an engaging work that merges creature feature action with deeper themes.
The short stars Kim Adis as Vivi. She travels to a remote mountain village in the Philippines and falls in with a group of Western environmentalists who want to save the forests. While Vivi certainly seems to care about the environment, she’s more concerned with reconnecting with her roots to understand where she came from. The Westerners, however, largely look down on the native people. This is especially true of Jess (Lisa Jacqueline Starrett), who mocks or condescendingly talks to the locals. It gets to the point where you start to question if the activists really care about the locals and the environment or just embark on the trip to make themselves feel better.
Meanwhile, Vivi faces resentment from the villagers who see her as a Westerner. Sachs does an especially great job showing how Vivi straddles a line and doesn’t really fit in anywhere. This is most apparent when she’s at a bar and the locals mock her, just like the activists mock them. It’s these moments when the short works best. Such sequences illustrate just how much Vivi feels like an outcast.
As already stated, the short is also a creature feature. The villagers fear a monster that comes at night. It haunts one location after the other, before disappearing in a black whisp of smoke. Jess, of course, also rolls her eyes at this and shrugs it off as superstition, but Vivi understands the lore and the culture.
As for the creature design, the monster looks pretty good, for the most part, though sometimes, the old rule of less is more could have applied here. The scares aren’t as effective when the monster is shown in full. Glimpses and the whisps of smoke leave more to the imagination than the snarling beast Vivi encounters.
Overall, Taga is an impressive short. The monster largely fades to the background while themes of identity move to the forefront. This film conveys what it’s like to feel like an outsider, while struggling with two warring identities.
