Petersen Vargas is an award-winning Filipino filmmaker based in Manila, Philippines. His films put focus on the LGBTQ+ identity and his regional roots.

His queer coming-of-age debut feature "2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten" (2016), set in the late 1990s in the aftermath of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, was awarded Best Picture at the Cinema One Originals Film Festival (2016) and the Audience Award at the Torino LGBTQI Film Festival (2017). Vargas’ undergraduate thesis film “Lisyun qng Geografia (Geography Lessons, 2014),” a film fully spoken in his native language Kapampangan, won him the Best Director trophy at the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival (2015).

He is a 2018 alumnus of the Asian Film Academy and a 2014 cum laude graduate from the University of the Philippines Film Institute.

He is known to be the creator and director of the first-ever Filipino gay web series “Hanging Out” presented by TEAM Magazine and Blued. He also works as a Creative Manager at a local independent film studio, T-Rex Entertainment, the production company behind titles such as Victor Villanueva's "Patay na si Hesus (Jesus is Dead)" and Samantha Lee's "Billie & Emma".

He lives in Quezon City with his cat, Wong Kat Wai.

(Source: Petersen Vargas, CargoCollective) Edit Biography