Rox Lee

Rox Lee (b. 1950, Naga City) is a pioneering figure in Philippine independent animation and experimental cinema. Beginning his creative journey as a cartoonist—most notably contributing to Jingle Magazine and co‑creating the Cesar Asar comic strip for the Manila Bulletin—Roxlee transitioned into film through the Ateneo‑Mowelfund workshops in the early 1980s. He produced influential Super‑8 works such as Tronong Puti (White Throne), The Great Smoke (a nuclear-warning satire), and Juan  Gapang (1987), a surreal urban performance piece that garnered a Gawad Urian award 

Over the decades, Roxlee has remained a stalwart of the underground arts scene—as a filmmaker, animator, painter, musician, and mentor. He co‑founded groups like Animagination (later Animahenasyon) and Sinekalye to bring street-based cinema and music to public spaces. His body of work—spanning experimental shorts, documentaries, and feature-length creative documentaries like Green Rocking Chair (2006) and Manila Scream (2016)—has earned international retrospectives (including Tokyo, Hamburg, Singapore, and Hong Kong) and major honors such as the FAMAS Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020 for his contributions to alternative Philippine cinema.