Puppeteer Hernando Alamada returns home, experiencing a bitter transition in the aftermath of the unexpected death of Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay. Communicating only using his puppet, he goes on a journey with a nun, a sex worker and a teenage boy to a remote island where gold has been discovered.
Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran continues his struggle to find a resolution to a 15-year-old case around a volcanic ash-laden landscape and an impenetrable lake.
A young woman is held captive by her father and forced into prostitution. Meanwhile, two men embark on a personal quest for buried treasure. However, both groups show signs of debilitating illness.
An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced to take a harsh sentence; and a mother and her two children wander the countryside in search of some kind of redemption.
Erwin Romulo, the late Alexis Tioseco’s best friend, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend Nika Bohinc’s untimely death in their home in Quezon City. Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events. The pain of recalling is palpable.
One of the Philippines' top investigators, Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, faces a deep moral crossroads. As a firsthand witness of the murderous anti-drug campaign conducted by his force, his anxiety and guilt triggers a severe skin disease, and his healing process is fraught by his dark past.
The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad, and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081, putting the entire country under Martial Law.
Andrés Bonifacio, the freedom fighter known as the father of the Philippine revolution, was executed by rival revolutionaries in 1897. His wife, Gregoria de Jesus, searched for his body in the mountains for 30 days. It was never found.
An artist struggles to finish his work while a storyline about a cult plays in his head. As the cult spirals towards a fundamentalism that will destroy the world, the artist decides to destroy his muse to redeem the world.
Tomas, the old venerable mayor of the remote town of Kawalan, learns that the invading Japanese will set up a garrison there. He organizes willing members in his community to set up a hidden settlement in the middle of the forest, where they can live unaffected by the horrors of war. As a young revolutionary during the 1896 fight against Spain and then as a soldier fighting against the Americans, Tomas had witnessed the effects of violence on people and become a pacifist. Now, he must see if inhabitants of the hidden settlement can escape the sufferings wrought by the war.
Six single women and a priest's lives intersect when a bingo marathon is launched in their church for the barangay fiesta, turning expectations and relationships upside down and inside out.
Continuing the tradition of national artist Ishmael Bernal's benchmark film Working Girls after 25 years, Working Girls of 2010 depicts the role of women in the new millennium. Seven women of different backgrounds, stories and personalities entwined in a colorful story of family, love and life.
Andrés Bonifacio is celebrated as the father of the Philippines Revolution against Spanish colonial rule. This eight-hour epic examines this myth, undertaking an expedition into history through various interwoven narrative threads, held together by an exploration of the individual’s role in history.
In the year 2050, the Philippines braces for the coming of the fiercest storm ever to hit the country. And as the wind and waters start to rage, poets are being murdered.
Hilarion Zabala has a mysterious, recurring olfactory problem. A counselor/psychiatrist suspects a lingering case of phantosmia, a phantom smell, and possibly caused by a deep psychological fracture. One recommended radical cure is that Hilarion must go back and deal with the darkest currents of his past life in the military service. Reassigned in the very remote Pulo Penal Colony, he must also confront the horrific realities of his present situation.
In late 1970s Philippines, a military-controlled militia oppresses a remote village, spreading terror both physical and psychological. Fearless young doctor Lorena opens a clinic for the poor but disappears without a trace. Her activist poet husband sets out to find her.
Madmen control Manila in 2034 after massive volcanic eruptions have plunged Southeast Asia into darkness.
In Frankfurt, Lailani, now 65, awaits a plane to Manila. She's returning home to the Philippines for the first time in 30 years. En route, she delays her return by stopping over in Singapore. Her interactions with her fellow Filipinos help her reflect on the nature of her loss, the cycle of sacrifice and longing that marks them all. Gripped by the fear of returning home to a life she has left behind but is still intricately connected to, she finds moments of enchantment among other lost souls. They've created their ways of living with disenchantment through a Dreamtime that shelters them from the storms of trauma.
With the imminent death of his autocratic grandfather, coinciding with the burgeoning oppressive regime of Ferdinand Marcos, Servando Monzon III, inheritor of the hacienda and businesses of his powerful clan, agonises on becoming the new feudal lord and capitulating with Marcos’ designs to control the Philippines. Aware of his clan’s long history of violence, Monzon knows the very violent history of his county and foresees a very violent future with the dictatorship.
To this day, Ishmael Bernal's movie Himala is still in our town, in our world. This will be reflected in the broader perspective of the majority, of the surrounding events. Beliefs still lie in the truth. Consciousness is still dominant at the level of illusion. The naive, savage, cruel, and selfish politics still prevail.
Three illegal miners journey back to their island after months of toiling in hellish conditions. With their hard-earned money, they traversed the sea, the mountains and the forest until they reached their destination. Or did they really reach their cursed place?
Structured and less beholden to its narrative, a 19th-century woman visits present-day Philippines and observes three interwoven stories: those of a prostitute, a group of criminals, and a musician.
After discovering a hidden clause in his work insurance, CELSO, a factory worker, goes extreme and faces a life-altering decision, challenging reality to secure his family's future.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
This is a Filipino omnibus film about three different journeys.
At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads an expedition under the Spanish crown in search of the first westward route to the Spice Islands. He embarks on a perilous journey across the uncharted Pacific, where his fleet faces starvation, mutiny, and the psychological toll of endless seas. Upon reaching the shores of Cebu, Magellan is pulled into a fatal conflict with the natives by his drive to spread Catholicism, culminating in his tragic doom.
Three generations of women, who run a destitute eatery, navigate through life in the slums with their love potion-laden dishes that mirror their desires and affection.