Alvin B. Yapan
After getting busted for having an affair with a married woman, Sonny, a gym instructor, crashes in with his friend Lito along with three other working guys: Ben, Mario, and Roy. They all share an apartment in Manila to make ends meet as Mario and Lito both work as call center agents, Ben as a restaurant waiter, and Roy as a bartender. Sonny’s supposed brief stay will reveal long kept secrets among the roommates, and will test their friendship. Will their responsibilities as men outweigh the joy they get from their relationships with each other and the women in their lives?
Three stories, one day in EDSA. An opportunistic entrepreneur develops a bond with a street kid trying to help him get to his business meeting in Makati, after losing his cellphone to a snatcher. A teacher from the province haggles with a former OFW, turned taxi driver, whether the country should follow world standards in basic education requirements. And a snatcher trying to reform himself with the help of a nurse by trying to return what he stole. Three stories all asking the same thing: what matters most, the collective or the individual gain?
The dead come alive as an ambulance driver and a nurse try to keep awake recounting road ghost stories on a Good Friday, the day of Christ’s death.
Michelle has a strange love story with her house by the bamboo grove, with which she developed a language, with things functioning as words only she could understand.
Mando, a Bikolano devotee of Ina, Virgin of Peñafrancia, Patroness of Bikolandia, injures himself in the middle of the forest at the foot of the Mayon Volcano. He will be nursed back to health by a mysterious woman, Salome. They will eventually fall in love with each other. But when Mando invites her to come with him to the plains, Salome refuses, saying a curse prohibits her from leaving the forest. Salome holds a secret that will devastate Mando’s love for her. Meanwhile, Mando relies on his devotion to the Virgin of Peñafrancia to lift the curse, making him realize just how inextricably linked are the virtues of love and faith.
Alvin Yapan’s latest work casts a refreshing take on modern relationships as he takes on the themes of romantic obsession, real identities and perhaps, true love. Tina’s love live seems doomed as every guy she falls for turns out to be…into other guys. She vows never to fall in love again and seeks solace in the company of her gay best friend Nick. Her life gets a turnaround when she meets a handsome FX driver that unleashes a dizzying string of surprises.
The film explores the varying degrees, forms and issues of surveillance (the feeling of being policed) which are the heart of the relationship and conflict of a schizophrenia patient and caregiver, especially during the treatment phase.
Gayuma is a magical love story going beyond the boundaries of social class, religious and superstitious beliefs, and urban-rural prejudices. A failed exorcism of a statue of the Child Jesus led a poor sacristan, Delfin, to concoct a love potion to make Carla, a rich girl, fall for him. After Carla drinks the potion and assents to his advances, Delfin couldn't believe his luck until he is no longer certain whether Carla really loves him. Delfin descends into a deep sleep of paranoia, from which medial science couldn't wake him. Carla goes on a pilgrimage to the heart of a mountain to overturn the potion. A possessed statue of a Child Jesus stands between them. Will their faith bring them together or keep them apart?
An unconventional love triangle that springs from a college student’s infatuation with his much older dance teacher. Wanting her attention, he asked the class beadle for dance training. Little did he know that he is in love with him.
In this metaphoric story of violence and resilience from director Alvin Yapan, Fe (Irma Adlawan) returns home to the Philippines after several years of working overseas, her job a victim of global economic shifts. Fe is initially greeted with affection by her husband Dante (Nonie Buencamino), but he has a long history of domestic violence fueled by rage and long-term impotence, and Fe quickly discovers her time away has not changed him. Dante works in a factory making baskets, and Fe soon joins him there; she becomes the lover of Arturo (T.J. Trinidad), the man who manages the basket company, but while Arturo treats her well, he's still under the thumb of his father who owns the factory. Meanwhile, an unknown admirer sends her parcels of strange black fruit on a regular basis. Torn between two men who cannot give her what she needs and wants, Fe's frustration leads to take desperate steps to establish her independence.
Filmmaker John Torres describes his childhood and discusses his father's infidelities.
Follows the creative process of Ruby, a prolific writer, abandoned wife and protective mother. She writes about Mario, a taxi driver and father figure to a street child. As she tries to resolve Mario's story, she seeks refuge in her own creative output and the line between reality and fiction is blurred. Mario's past becomes entangled with her own inevitable future.
In between harvests, to supplement their income, Judith is sent by her father to catch birds which they would peddle come Sunday outside the church. On their trip to the city, Judith requests that they watch a movie after selling off all the birds. What Judith gets in return is a torotot (trumpet) made out of rolled-up film negatives. The story is set in Bikol where it is a practice among rural folks to surround the perimeter of their farmlands with film negatives to ward off birds eating the newly sown palay seeds.
Dance, poetry and desire form a seductive triangle for a college student infatuated with an older teacher.
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.
