Discoveries from Philippines World Cinema

Based on a true-to-life notorious group of young gunmen known as the "Celeste gang," linked to a number of armed holdups and violent incidents in metro manila in the 80s.

After more than a decade of imprisonment, Dolores is ready to start a new life again and rebuild the family she never had.

Victims of a serial killer seem to be connected to NBI agent Andy Gil.

Femme fatale causing death to anyone she ever crossed paths with.

Dr. Miguel Cascarro finds a troubled and mysterious girl named Valerie lying in the middle of a road. He welcomes her into his home and takes care of her, until an intimate relationship blossoms between them. Will this romance heal their scars from the past, or will it cut deeper wounds?

Campus beat and romance are set to music in this film of our times.

Haunted by the ghost of a past crime, two friends find themselves stranded with strangers in a convenience store where abandoned souls await their victims.

The story revolves around 3 best of friends. Kara, the cosplayer and online retailer. George the boyish football wannabe, Enzo, the Mr. Fix-It

A jilted housewife uncovers a horrifying secret about her husband when he tries her adobong puti.

Tony Espiritu is a man on the run. He is running for his life. He is running from his life. This action-drama film dramatizes the legend of the beginnings of Olongapo City

Noah comes home from the States to look into the real reason behind his best friend Damian's death. With his clairvoyant girlfriend Eileen, he meets old folks who shed light on pervasive superstitious beliefs about death and ghosts. Noah's skepticism is challenged as four souls trail him and Eileen.

The heartbreaking plight of the overseas contract workers is dramatized in the tragic tale of Flor Contemplacion - the Filipino domestic helper in Singapore convicted of murder and condemned to death. Accounts culled from reports of Amnesty International as well as classified info gathered in the Asian city-state itself are combined with actual footages and recreated scenes of events leading to the heroine's execution.

A love story about a guy with and a broken family a girl who slept with her professor.

Image production is fiction-weaving. Together with Sheena Absalud, we spent an entire day in Pride Month in my room documenting ourselves using different cameras: three mobile phones, one action camera, one CCTV camera, and one laptop, while asking each other questions about our asexuality. Recognizing the role of the moving image in constructing prejudice, self-identity, and desires, and therefore the expansion of neoliberalism, "The Function of Fiction" attempts to abandon temptations to define “asexuality” and its place in the context of “LGBTQIA+”, in pursuit of new socialities and possibilities. Music in the film was spawned with plants and machines.

The first film adaptation of the popular corrido/awit of the same name about a prince disguised as a deformed beggar.

A black comedy film, which focuses on two film workers, Raffy, the clapper, and Dido, a utility boy. Both share the same dream: to direct their own films someday. Their lives as mere "small production people" took a different turn when, together with the people in the unit van they were riding,had an encounter with armed men. Their co-workers were killed, and the two of them were forced to drive the unit van out of fear until it ran out of gas. The van contains equipment for movie production like cameras, lights and film stocks. They ended up in a secluded barrio not yet reached by modern technology, and therefore, the townsfolk knew nothing of the movie industry.

Stomach In, Chest Out is a 1988 Filipino comedy film co-written and directed by Junn P. Cabreira. The film stars Eddie Garcia, Joey Marquez, Lara Melissa de Leon, Mercy Dizon, Debraliz, Daphie Garcia, Beth Yalung, Dexter Doria, and Monica Herrera. Produced by Cine Suerte, the film was released on August 11, 1988.

A love story.

After witnessing her parents' death, May develops a condition that knocks her unconscious on land, forcing her to live in a lake house as she fights to reclaim her life.

Childhood friends, Nonoy and Jenny, embark on their freshman year at a prestigious university together. However, bad company leads Nonoy astray. As he nearly loses everything, he works his way back to his path.

Ruben loses his job as a carpenter in a small town in Zambales where he lives with his wife Eden and their 10-year old son, Budoy. Desperate to make ends meet, he accepts a job as a caretaker of an abandoned property in Quezon City. Ruben soon finds out that the previous owner of the house is an important figure in the country’s history. When he is interviewed by a TV reporter about this historical figure, Ruben feels embarrassed that he knows nothing about him. Ruben soon starts reading up to get to know more about the life of this person, his accomplishments and what he has done for the people. Ruben’s fascination about the person’s life and his inevitable hero-worship irks the only friend he has in the sprawling compound, the night-shift security guard, Gimo, who jokes that Ruben is slowly being possessed by the soul of his new hero.

Cris and Jason are two policemen with two opposite personalities and philosophies-Cris is the epitome of the rare, near-extinct breed of honest cops while Jason is the basurero, the legman/front man who does the dirty work of his district's high officials.

A woman is invited to a dinner party hosted at one of the most expensive mansions in Manila. The woman immediately accepts the invite in hopes to immerse herself in a new environment, meet new acquaintances, and experience fine dining like never before. But the night is not what it seemed – at least for her.

When Andy marries Grace, he is surprised to discover that her family is staying with them. But what surprises him, even more, is finding out that they are all ex-convicts.

Crispin is a soltero who has undergone several heartbreaks with women, broken family ties, and his own personal conflicts. In his evolution as a man, he shows his weakness, his strengths, his confusion.

Arman is torn between two women, a woman who came from a decent family or the one who kept it a secret of being a first-class prostitute.

The film is about the entangled stories of a group of young people who happen to be in a bar in Puerto Princessa, Palawan on the eve of All Souls' Day. As midnight approaches, we become complicit as each of them takes the challenge of the Pangangaluluwa, a seemingly innocent Palawan tradition of honoring the dead by stealing something from the living. A young guitarist battles with crabs; an Indian guy gets caught in a crossfire; a hot cougar meets her match; Cosplayers battle for road supremacy; a religious woman finds true faith in a strange kiss; and a bartender prepares a drink that results in the most bitter of brews. The movie holds up a mirror to this dark night and bear witness to the inevitable consequences that mark the choices of the young

An anthology of three violent stories: three friends perform Spirit of the Glass and discover a tragic love triangle; a refrigerator seems to be 'alive'; and a teenager who courts a barrio lass without his knowledge that this lass is a monster, which eventually causes chaos to his family.

It is like any other day in Artiaga Street when men eat dogs and get drunk and women have to succumb to their husbands’ aggressiveness. Mariana, pregnant with her second child has been planning for this day. She is fed-up. She wants to break loose. On the ground floor, her husband’s dog barks incessantly. Upstairs the baby cries constantly waiting to be fed. She has to fight. A woman, too, has rights. Confronting her drunken husband and the dog, she makes one last bid for freedom that might finally set her free.

Universal Motion, "the hottest song-and-dance group to ever hit the Philippine scene," plays a group of young boys who are discovered, brought to Manila, have adventures and romance and get to strut their stuff and win fame and fortune.

A princess from an unnamed kingdom escapes her parents' arranged marriage and travels to Manila. She checks into a hotel and falls in love with a bellboy.

The film, set in the 1980s, is centred upon a young student, from 1982 as a freshman and ending in 1986. The background is the last years of Martial Law in the Philippines where the Marcos dictatorship was at its peak.

A young woman, Cristy, must reconcile the choices she makes for her future with the demands of her overbearing mother, Rosa, in this intricate Filipino drama. When Cristy's father, Julio, abandons the family for his rich mistress, Jenny, Rosa refuses to let Cristy attend college. Tension mounts when Cristy not only seeks help from her dad but also falls in love with Jenny's brother.

“Tum: My Pledge of Love” tells the love story of two people hindered by their respective cultural beliefs and threatened by people around them. In the end they come to the crossroad of their emotions, To choose whether or not they are meant for each other. But aside from the love story, the film also shows the rich culture of India.

Venus and Mars are neighbors born during a rare planetary alignment, but while Venus grows up blessed by good fortune, Mars seems destined to bring nothing but bad luck to his friends and family. Just when everything looks hopeless for Mars, he discovers he has a rare gift and also that he's in love with the beautiful Venus. Is romance in the stars for Mars, or will his rotten fate break his heart again?

The first Darna movie featuring Vilma Santos.

Loosely based on the kidnapping of a broadcast journalist and her crew, the film shows a 10-year-old Tausug boy used by the Abu Sayyaf group to "charge" the cellphones they use in negotiating for their demands for the release of their captives. Things take a strange turn when the journalist befriends Shihab and earns his trust as Shihab finds himself torn between his loyalty to his Tausug brothers and the bond he has forged with his newfound friend.

Vandolph plays big city streetwise kid who shacks up with a bunch of other kids like him in a makeshift home, hull of a bus, where Totoy (Babalu) lords over them as a surrogate date. Together they do their shenanigans that almost always end up in the craziest of misadventures. Until a band of underworld gangsters discover Boy's potential in one of their rackets - as a boy sumo wrestler. The kid obliges. The adventure heightens as Boy, Totoy and their cohorts go up against the bad guys in the wackiest chase ever!

A superstitious guy, Bien, seeks all sorts of “divine” signs that will determine his decision of asking the girl of his dreams out on a date. The fear of rejection swallows him whole, making him justify his cause to seek for more unfathomable signs. But when each sign he asks for materializes, he soon learns that he has to be careful with what he wishes.

The group joins the Philippine Constabulary and was sent on a surveillance mission to monitor a smuggling group and their contraband.

Best friends Gwen and Moira join a food and wine tour in Chile, ending up at a remote resort run by a mysterious couple. As guests vanish, they uncover a cannibal cult. The two must fight to survive, rescue each other, and escape becoming the next meal.

A science fiction film starring Anne Curtis and Alden Richards.

Red, a shy orphan who spent most of his childhood in a girly bar, grew up to be the town's best fixer. When a rich kid was gunned down in a drug bust that went wrong, Red was hired by Art, a spoiled socialite, to fix the mess.

School friends who pass the time stealing copper electric wires and steel, betting cash in online computer games and doing sexual services to gay patrons. Krys’ best friend Joef is the leader of the pack and he is turning eighteen and is leaving the next day. Krys tries to control Joef’s last day and birthday celebration as he attempts to stop him from his plans. But will Krys be able to stop the guy he likes from leaving?

A young man hired as a houseboy becomes the object of the sexual attentions of an entire family.

Isabel Reyes (Rhian Ramos) is an infamous soap opera villain in the country. Everyone simply loathes Isabel which makes her the most condemned personality in the world of television. But by some weird twist of fate, Isabel's life turns upside down when she encounters a near-death accident. The wicked antagonist experiences a sudden change of heart and being the top kontrabida of her soap opera, Isabel couldn't just deliver her heartlessness and cruelty in front of the camera. Her over-the-top villainous persona disappears and she finds herself powerless to kick and slap the lead star. Isabel's show hits a major ratings slump and the network advises her to take a break from work with hopes of reigniting her passion. To solve her dilemma, Isabel seeks the help of the biggest kontrabida icon in the country, no less than Ms. Bella Flores. She finds her on YouTube and says that for Isabel to get herself back, she needs to find the person who hurt her the most.

In a quiet lonely home, Zaldy, an old man living in his own company, dwells on his set daily routines. As days pass, those routines encounter unprecedented changes.

Billy and Jack are modern-day Robin Hoods who engage in petty scums to earn money for the upkeep of a daycare center for indigent and underprivileged children.

Originally a three-part experimental film, respectively titled SPIT, WORDS AND OUTAKES…, and OPTIK, combining animation, illustration, found footage and liquid mercury.

Two couples find themselves in a complicated love triangle.

Set on the eve of a fictional inaugural of the Bangsamoro Government, the film revolves around Daud, a scion of a political dynasty who is reluctant to become a member of the Parliament, and his college buddy Marco, a struggling journalist assigned to cover the inaugural. The duo drive off to the countryside, reminiscing their days as student activists and discovering their deepest longings as hostages of a future they will inherit.

The motion picture that will make you proud you are a Filipino.

A day in the lives of burgis UP film students.

A group of friends whose camping trip suddenly turns into a nightmare when they find themselves being relentlessly pursued by a couple of ferocious creatures.

A woman is thinking of abortion, against her firm faith and family's wants.