Tagalog

PLOT: Joey, a musically-inclined college student who falls for Ana, a married young woman vacationing from Manila. As their friendship starts blossoming into romance, the two slowly uncover startling truths about each other’s pasts.Read More »

Set during the post-Marcos regime in a remote village of Dolores, chronicles the life of Jimmy Cordero, a political prisoner who have just been freed from prison after the decline of the Marcos dictatorship. From his revolutionary past, he got himself into human rights activism following his prison release. He and his wife’s brother once conducted a fact-finding mission to Dolores only to find out the terror brought about to its residents by the Orapronobis, a government-backed anti-communist paramilitary troop deployed in the town of Dolores.Read More »

PLOT: A fascinating portrait of life in Manila’s corrupt, teeming and polluted urban jungle, Manila in the Claws of Light tells the story of Julio, a 21-year-old fisherman who arrives in the Filipino capital looking for his girlfriend. Immediately robbed of what little cash he has, he scrabbles to survive, drifting through a number of temporary jobs, while wandering the city in search of his beloved.Read More »

Quote:
Part-investigative documentary, part-satire and shot entirely in black-and-white, the film tackles the mystery that surrounds the life and death of the Filipino hero, Jose Rizal.Read More »

Informed by filmmaker Shireen Seno’s childhood in the Filipino diaspora and her dual training in film and architecture, this sophomore work is a stylized evocation of a child’s fanciful interpretation of the world around her. Eight-year-old Yael, left to her own devices after school, secretly plays and replays audio cassettes her father sends home to her mother while working overseas in Saudi Arabia; pursues happiness as communicated to her via a TV advertisement; and, in fanciful scenes that evoke the work of American artist Laurie Simmons, enters the meditative, immersive world of her dollhouse’s kitchen. Seno offers fleeting clues from the late-eighties outside world, hinting at societal turmoil following Ferdinand Marcos’s ouster and complicated adult relations, but these never overshadow her film‘s touching depiction of childhood imagination.Read More »

PLOT: Living near the US Clark Air Base, Corazon de la Cruz dreams of a better life in America… until the unspeakable happens.Read More »

Quote:
The hidden nightlife of ordinary people living in Manila unveils. Lovers and families’ conflicts are radically pitted against each other as they live in the night streets rampant with drugs and prostitution. The outstanding narrative explicitly unravels the various characters and episodes. This landmark film of Ishmael Bernal depicts the darkness of city life so vividly that it was once prohibited to use the word ‘Manila’ on its title.Read More »

Summary:
“Signos” features interviews of courageous personalities who challenged the autocratic rule of the Marcos family.Read More »

PLOT: Sid Lucero, a 26-year old pre-Med student is an aspiring neophyte of the Alpha Kappa Omega fraternity. Over a six-month initiation period, he and six other neophytes are subjected to severe physical and psychological torture in and outside the fraternity house.Read More »