Discoveries from Philippines World Cinema

A writer faces a solemn death, the death of his creativity, a writer’s block. He then accidentally sees a crime being committed in a dark alley of the city, he has the option to help, but why should he?

A filmmaker follows her grandparents’ daily life after her chain-smoker and alcoholic grandmother is forced to stop drinking beer for a month.

Loy comes home on a rainy night; tired and frustrated. Hell-bent on wanting to speak with his brother, he dared to ask, "Can we talk?". Loy might never have the certainty of getting an answer. But, he had the rest of the night to figure it out.

Mitolohiya adapts the story about the origin of The First Coconut Tree and the Creation of Man, using 2D characters with 3D textured environments. Go through an epic adventure featuring Bathala; a god living on a deserted planet who seeks and desires to create the first life on Earth, Galangkalulua; a winged god who wanders the universe, and Ulilangkalulua; a serpent god ruling over the clouds. This animation film is created to promote and preserve Philippine myths about Tagalog gods & goddesses through an entertaining hybrid animation format.

Man, betrayed by the hollow echoes of his hammer, smashes the sphere to reveal the vehicle away from the hole, towards the hole. The inescapable gift of fertility fulfills his ultimate duty to make the world obscure again in order to reclaim what was known.

A girl longs for her mother, narrating a letter she wrote to her as she explores the struggles of distance learning. Made as a project for a tenth-grade performance task. Shot entirely on iPhone 6.

A short film about the Ilonggo writer, Magdalena Jalandoni. She is shown as a six year old girl growing up in the province of Iloilo, and on the threshold of history. In one of her walks, she finds out about the death of Jose Rizal, inspiring the passion for writing that is growing inside of her each day. A passion she has to hide from her family.

Seven directors. Seven stories. One Sunday.

Marcelino Pan y Vino is a Filipino TV movie from 1979 directed by Mario O'Hara. The film is a remake of Ladislao Vajda's 1955 film of the same title, about a boy brought up by monks and encountering Divinity. The story revolves around Marcelino, an orphan abandoned as a baby on the steps of a monastery in nineteenth-century Spain. The monks raise the child, and Marcelino grows into a rowdy young boy. He has been warned by the monks not to visit the monastery attic, where a "very big man who will take him away" lives, but he ventures upstairs anyway, sees the man and tears off back down the stairs.

Heaven makes mistakes too. Juan dela Cruz (Janno Gibbs) was killed before his time and must be sent back to earth. However, the chief angel with a human name Angelo (Tony Mabesa) found out that he was due to die in one week's time or next Saturday or Sabado in Filipino and he would go to hell.

THE SMILE TAPES is an analog horror series about a strange drug that spreads a disease throughout the population. People that are infected tend to have a forced smile and go on a killing spree.

See the wrath of a vengeance. Feel the inferno of a smoldering hate. This picture is hot as hell.

Years after her mother went missing, Mala finds remnants of their memories in a box, slowly unfolding the truth behind her disappearance.

Set in an indigenous community in the hinterlands in Mindanao, a family goes up to the mountains to grieve and bury its youngest member who died from sickness.

The film directly communicates climate change's impact in this changing and progressing world, its causes and repercussions on Earth, and actions that must be taken to address these concerns. The surface knowledge of random teenage students was expressed and used in disseminating information about the current issues inclined to the climate crisis. The misconception that the youth are insensible about the alarming change in climate was also debunked. The film explains the significance of the environment in our lives. It principally aims to inform, educate, and raise consciousness about the necessity of communicating climate change. It tells us the narratives of the mechanisms of how climate change progressed throughout history and how it drastically changed the earth’s landscape.

A science high school graduate turned filmmaker reimagines the sudden death of their grandfather with Newton’s laws of motion. With repurposed home videos and mobile footage collected in 7 years, it explores life as a field of opposing forces, relationships as variables, and ruminations as something material.

Rodel, a handsome and sweet-talking traveling salesman, stops by a small eatery for lunch. He meets Aleli, the daughter of the owner of the eatery, and is instantly smitten by her. Aleli is not impressed by his easy ways, but Lagrimas, her mother, is. To win Aleli, Rodel conspires with Lagrimas, who in turn, forces her daughter to go out with him. But what Aleli thinks as a friendly date turns out to be a nightmare, as Rodel ends up raping her.

Despite life's misfortunes, a young boy selling flowers remains hopeful & determined in pursuing his dreams of a comfortable future.

Minda is a woman who, in her desperation to be with someone, easily falls for Daniel. An account of heartache and betrayal, witness how the man Minda loves instantly turns into her worst nightmare once her gay son Ryan enters the picture.

An impassive young student, in a state of idolization, went from taking care of his unusual pets to killing most of them in a day.

When campus journalist Gino uncovers inconsistencies in a years-old article, he and his team embark on a quest for the truth—only to realize that history has been rewritten to protect those in power. With censorship, misinformation, and institutional resistance standing in their way, they must decide whether exposing the past is worth risking their future.

Walang Sugat is an original sarswela which interweaves the personal with the national.

A documentary crew go out into Philippine agricultural heartland to tail the lives made rich by miracle rice—a prized strain of the grain with almost mythic qualities.

After an earthquake hits her province, a distressed young bride wanders around the city to find a new home, and possibly, a new existence.

Have you ever met someone and talked as if you knew them already? Two strangers met on Omegle once and are preparing for their college years. When the girl meets someone in college, everything seems so familiar.

A hornet that is stuck inside a photocopier is unable to fly. With nowhere left to go before its inevitable demise, the hornet reminisces a birthday greeting from the past until every word spoken begins to die.

Recalling how the Pantabangan Dam had disrupted the lives of kinsmen in the southern part of Sierra Madre, the Remontados in Tanay, Rizal, stand their ground in opposition to the proposed Kaliwa-Kanan Dam, a project of the Marcoses funded by the World Bank.

Was the woman her mother?

No more mixed signals. Hindi ka sobra kung gusto mo ng malinaw. Clarity should be the bare minimum ‼️ Deserve mo ng pagmamahal na SIGURADO! Elijah Canlas as JOMS Miles Ocampo as ARI Directed by John Manalo

In Bacolod, Kara feels a sudden surge of intense body heat as a distant rumble echoes from the mountains.

Based on a SINEGANG.ph article of the same name, this meta-documentary follows two aspiring Leyteño filmmakers as they set out to explore and document the film scene in Leyte (or the lack thereof). As their project unfolds, the region’s cinematic void begins to weigh on them, testing their passion and leading them down a path of growing frustration and disillusionment.

Balintuna is an experimental film about a woman who wants to escape the violence and sexual abuse of his own father, a pastor of a religious church.

Something seems to be preparing Rana. It appears after spending the day with their grandmother and their friend Saada. In the afternoon, as a hopeful gesture, after getting in drag for the first time. Rana comes home from a night of clubbing (plus getting a new mole), and finally gets to dance.

While hunting for pitcher plants, a taciturn poacher encounters an unexpected object in the middle of the forest and finds himself listening to someone grieving about their hair.

A lazy, disheveled teenager suppresses her hunger, driven by an inhumane and capricious appetite by means of smoking, and doesn't do anything to satisfy her cravings. A male acquaintance comes along with suggestive intentions, and what unfolds is more than a bloody predicament.

A young married couple show how to manage life despite the odds.

A young woman devoid of memory wakes up in a city where things are never as they seem.

Des agrees to Julius’ plan to generate some money without knowing what the plan is. Meanwhile, Troy, a rich and reckless college student, introduces Nona, his girlfriend with whom he has a child, to his balikbayan mother. The meeting does not end with success. Troy and his mother argue in the car as he takes his mother home. They get out of the car and continue to argue. It is 10:25 at night when the paths of Des and Julius and Troy and his mother meet. Des and Julius carry out their plan.

Dr. Jose Rizal, time travel in the future!

A 2005 comedy movie directed by Willy Milan starring Mikey Arroyo, Ethel Booba and Katrina Halili.

Amidst heightened quarantine restrictions, a group of Badjao roams the locale of Agusan del Sur in search of food and a way to get through the day. This is a story about their survival, hopes, and worldview as they also experienced the challenges of the pandemic.

Face off between young Ulysses Chan, and the female slave takers/ owners. They terrorise the village and steal women from their homes. A clash is likely!

Augustus Vera, Age for short, is an aspiring writer who needs to submit a short story for a writing workshop. In the last few weeks before his deadline, he finds himself struggling on how he’ll engage his literary character towards the subject of his craft, an orgy subculture. He patterned his literary character to Andrew, a persuasive, bold, and adventurous guy who also pushes Age to conquer his hesitations on finishing the story. With the help of Andrew and the people within his workshop, Age finishes his story by cumming out of his comfort zone by potentially taking part on what he hesitates most.

Your favourite love team plus the Philippines' newest heart-throb and the scree's most seductive siren.

Desperate to pass his final plate on time, architecture student Franco seeks the help of his classmate Seth, who, despite his reputation for being a weirdo, always gets the highest grade in class. Seth agrees to help him in one condition: Franco has to come along with him on a night out–which includes smoking weed and getting high. Reluctant at first, Franco ends up enjoying the night with Seth—until a woman gets shot in front of them.

As the superhero torch is passed from one Alamid (Lapid) to another (Alvaro), a brutal gang emerges from Manilla’s criminal underworld.

"Manong ng Pa-­Aling", directly translated as "Man of Pa-­Aling", is the incredible story of man's natural relationship with the ocean. And amidst physical frailty, and of his age, Manong decides what he will do next after retiring from his only known profession, to be a fisherman.

A man follows a woman through the streets.

Mario O'Hara's melodrama about an aspiring singer and her ex-convict sweetheart.

“Tutob” is a short film that tells of a motorcycle-riding Maranao who arrives in the city to pick up a package from his boss’s contact. The city is on alert because of recent bombings in the region and the Maranao, speaking of course in Maranao, tells the soldiers at a checkpoint that he does not know what the package contains. The film’s theme begins to unravel when the Bisayan-speaking soldiers order him to open the package.

An investigation into the unsolved disappearances of sabungeros (cockfighting enthusiasts) in the Philippines between 2021 and 2022.