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.
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.
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.
The night before the lockdown, while reviewing some unused footages from my latest film project (Hinulid), a small box from an anonymous sender arrives. The box contains a Bikol translation of the Tagalog long poem, Ibong Adarna, and an egg.
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.
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.
A fisherman living along the Bicol River searches for his missing wife. His faith in God is tested when he finally finds her.
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.
A wounded activist ends up in a toilet and meets two members of the oppressed masses whose only reality is living on toilet fees.
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.
In transit, Carlo reminisces the blissful memories of his beloved mother, Joy, who died a few months ago while the country was in lockdown facing a worldwide pandemic. As he returns to his hometown Pampanga to reunite with his family, he will be facing a first birthday without his mother.
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.
Amidst joblessness and a film grant at their disposal, two filmmakers buy an oven to have an alternate source of income during the global pandemic. Through a video diary format, the film tries to explore the oppressive limitations of home and the filmmakers' looming thoughts of migration from these oven-like spaces.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A tribute to the people that we fear to lose, and for the ones that we have lost. It is a story about the fear that we have to face as the new normal.
