After years of imprisonment in the Middle East for a crime he did not commit, Lino finally returns to his small town. He hopes to relive his lost dreams and bring back everything that was taken away from him. With his red suitcase filled with misery and uncertainty, he reunites with his past. Revisiting what he left behind, he discovers that life went on without him. As he tries to fill the emptiness, he realizes that he is now the void.
When an alien comes back to take him, a mouthless young man's life twists and turns as his memories untangle.
Padre De Pamilya is a story about a father Joselito Mirasol (Ariel Rivera) whose only wish is for his children to grow up as good Catholic Christians. Unfortunately, his salary as a government officer is not enough to make ends meet. And because he is working under a corrupt mayor (Tessie Tomas), the temptation to become a corrupt government official are always there.
Inside the Rabadon house, nobody talks. Lives are kept to themselves; problems are not shared; questions are not entertained. The people living inside it have become used to leaving everything unstirred especially Margaret, the mother of the home. Margaret's desire for cleanliness and order alienates her from her family. She cannot confront the problems of her life and so she confronts dirty dishes, ugly stains, and disorderly appliances. To get to know her family, she snoops around - entering rooms, opening cabinets, reading journals she is not supposed to read. But everything changes when a journal entry of her daughter's makes her unravel, stirring the unstirred life that she has held on to for years.
During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II, a young girl from Vigan and an idealistic Japanese officer fall in love. With a war between them and disapproval from both sides, the two struggle to find their own piece of happiness in the world as duty and family threaten to tear them apart.
Gibson Bonifacio stopped speaking when he was a child. Now twenty, he returns home to Manila for Christmas. While always festive in the Philippines, for his family it is tinged with sadness, marking the anniversary of his twin brother’s death.
In 1982, a fourteen-year-old movie fanatic from an underprivileged family in the Municipality of Manapla coincidentally witnesses the production shoot of Oro, Plata, Mata in his hometown. Full of determination he approaches the director, Peque Gallaga, in the hopes of landing a job that would help in providing for his family, and feed his passion.
When they have no one to pass their "mutya" forward so they can finally die, aging "aswangs" in Antique are believed to seek for the mystical lake in Negros where they can just turn into ashes and disappear forever. This is the story of a 78 year old aswang and the young man who helped her find the lake.
While trying to cozy up to the sexy and mysterious Mina, who recently moved into the boardinghouse above his shop, unlucky Xerox operator Lito is unwittingly placing his life in grave danger.
Jay is the name of the two protagonists in the film, one is living, the other dead. The living Jay is producing a documentary of the dead Jay, a gay teacher who was brutally killed. As Jay recreates and examines the life of his subject, his own life is affected when he unravels his subject's hidden life and secret love.
Boses (Voices) is the story of a musician named Ariel who offers violin lessons to a child of the slums. Through the violin, the abused child Onyok is able to get back his voice from a mute, desensitized existence. A violin teacher and his student, a mute 7-year old abused child in a shelter, develop a friendship stemming from their love of music. Ariel discovers the immense talent of Onyok hiding behind a veneer of silence and pain caused by an unhappy and cruel father. In the developing relationship of teacher and student, both characters reveal more of themselves that otherwise may have remained unspoken. They discover each other's strengths and failures through the violin lessons.
Shot in Oriental Mindoro, Philippines, Brutus follows two kids smuggling logs from the mountains. It is about the journey that opens their eyes to a 'world' that is ruled by greed and torn by the political conflicts.
A wounded activist ends up in a toilet and meets two members of the oppressed masses whose only reality is living on toilet fees.
Badong, an established painter, comes home and returns to his old studio. He has a piece in mind that requires a specific model to pose nude. He wants Mimosa, his former nude model and ex live-in partner. Years ago, Mimosa left him for another man.
At the start of the twentieth century, a small province-island earned the moniker 'Sugar Bowl' when it became the sugar capital of the Philippines- the Island of Negros.
This documentary features the endangered languages of the Dupaninan Agta in Isabela, and the Tandulanen Tagbanua in Palawan, Philippines. The film follows the journey of Consuelo and Robert against the backdrop of the changing ecosystem in the grasslands of Isabela, where endemic grasses are being slowly displaced by invasive foreign species, and ends in the beaches of Palawan once inhabited by mythological crabs. As a poetic and lyrical rumination on the beauty of words, this docu shows how language is indeed the soul of a culture.
Makoy, Kaloy, and Buknoy wake up to an announcement about going back to school. Parents who do not want or are unable to opt for online classes must take an exam to determine if they are fit to teach their children. Unfortunately, most parents in this small town are not as privileged as their children who've had formal education.
After saving a drowning child 13 feet under the sea, a man has to adapt to living with his developing scales and gills.
A woman with falling hair, anxious about her online work, a child unable to leave her room in a power outage, and a yoga buff with body issues, all encounter an unseen terror while alone in their urban middle-class homes during the nationwide quarantine.
Orphaned by war, 12-year old Nikol found a new home in Isla Kalilintad, an island community of people from different cultures and faith traditions. He was forced to become an adult at a tender age, trying to eke out a living to feed Langit, his younger brother. By serendipitous circumstance, Dr Sittie and Sr Claire, a team of humanitarian workers on a mobile medical mission, visited the isla before they proceed to the other smaller islands. Nikol, eager to grab the chance to work, presented himself as a natural healer and got accepted as an all around utility person for the mission. The mobile medical mission which runs on a low budget, relies on fishing boats offered by the communities they serve as they make their way to far-flung villages rarely reached by medical services from both government and private sector. Each journey to these unknown frontiers bears stories of struggle and survival of people affected by war and extreme poverty.
