Gil Portes

Fidela, a freshly retired school teacher in Baler meets Kenji who is a young Japanese photojournalist. Kenji looks so much of her fiance who never returned after the World War II. The film is about two epic love stories that are four decades apart bound together by one unforgettable son, in one magical place.

Decades before the rise of liberalism in Spanish-era colonial Philippines, a young charismatic preacher leads a movement for equality and religious freedom for his fellow native Filipinos. He is hailed as the Christ of the Tagalogs, but is sentenced to death for heresy by both Church and State.

5.8/10

Hukluban examines the plight of the cursed woman, Mira, over the span of three eras over six generations and her search for true love and a man.

The film tells the story of a journalist (Eloisa) whose expose’ of the truth results in life-changing consequences to a baseball team of poor boys. Inspired by a true story.

4.2/10

A group of soldiers led by then-Colonel Cenon Payawan (Cris Villanueva) attacks an NPA camp deep in the wilderness. Among those killed is a rebel woman carrying a child in a sling. Payawan adopts the child, and eighteen years later, the now-retired general and his wife are dealing with her rebellion. Then, her biological father Ka Ruben (an admirably committed Arnold Reyes) suddenly shows up at their doorstep, claiming that he has cancer, and that his dying wish is to get to know his daughter.

5.3/10

After a horrific collision between a passenger bus and an 18-wheeler truck in Nueva Ecija claimed two dozen casualties, two families await the arrival of their dead.

Angelo, an action star wanna be, stumbles upon a bag of money worth 11 Million Pesos. The money came from a bank robbery gone awry. His life suddenly becomes an action thriller.

4.1/10

A group of disparate women find comfort in one another when faced with heart-wrenching tragedy in this moving story. After a terrorist bombing at an airport kills many innocent victims, the lives of the family members who lost their loved ones are forever changed. In their anger, grief and disbelief, eight women of different generations and backgrounds forge a bond.

7.3/10

The movie tells the story of Abigael Edades who returns to her Philippine hometown from her five-year stint as a nurse in Canada. Her town mates rousingly welcome her as a hero, the crass moniker ascribed by the government to hundreds of thousands of Filipinos working abroad. She finds her family in tatters, her parents estranged and living apart and her brother Jepoy living the life of drugs. But she basks in the welcome of her mother and youngest brother Noel and the devotion of her boyfriend, who proposes marriage. Her happiness is short-lived. She is diagnosed with SARS and contaminates Noel. They cause a national scare, are quarantined in Manila and are shunned by their own townspeople and the municipal government. Even her boyfriend leaves her. The hero becomes a heel. "Just a month after my return, my views on life and the people around me have irrevocably changed," she says at the start of the movie.

5.3/10

Melinda is a new substitute teacher at the Malawig Elementary School, located in a poor remote barrio. A young university graduate, her family expects her to look for work abroad, but in her idealism she takes on a challenging job in the provincial public school, which lacks resources and has corrupt personnel. The heavy monsoon rains and the nearby NPAs also add to her difficulties. The children are indifferent to their studies, having been affected by the hopelessness around them. Melinda tries to motivate them by capitalizing on their interest and talent in singing. She takes advantage of a funding opportunity to enter them in a choral contest. She encounters some resistance, however, from the school administration and from the parents of her students. Furthermore, the death of one of the choral group’s members at the hands of the Armed Forces of the Philippines casts a pall on their once joyful preparations. Melinda, however, constantly tries to rise above these challenges.

6.9/10
6.1%

a film by Gil Portes.

5.6/10

It's the story of a young woman, whose husband, is arrested by the soldiers of a Japanese garrison, on the suspicion that he is a guerilla. Dizon pleads her case to the garrison's commander, who sympathizes and lets Yllana go; when the commander's wife dies and leaves their son motherless, Dizon, is hired to feed the baby from her own breast.

5.6/10

After watching a documentary about the suffering of women forced into prostitution during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Markova decides to tell his own painful story to reporter Loren Legarda. Escaping the torment of growing up with an abusive older brother, he and his friends found further suffering at the hands of Japanese soldiers, forced into sex work to survive. But even after the war, Markova's struggle continued.

6.7/10

Though widowed ex-cop Homer is a kindly father to his ten-year old son Rex, he is considered to be something of a bully in the poor Manila neighborhood that he lives. After mistaking a child retrieving a snarled kite for a burglar, Homer kills the boy and then hurriedly tries to cover up his error. Unbeknownst to his dad, Rex witnessed the event, too. As the two separately wrestle with their consciences, the neighbors find out and chaos soon ensues.

6.7/10

Gil M. Portes directed this Filipino drama in which young Miguel (Romnick Sarmenta) leaves the Philippines for the U.S, where he hopes to marry a nice girl. The person who returns home a few years later, however, is Michelle -- the former Miguel altered by surgery and cosmetics. Her/his father is stunned by this development, and other hostile reactions erupt. Shown at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival.

5.5/10

A doctor dedicated her life post-graduate to help the rural community of Mulanay, Quezon. Based on a true story.

7.7/10

A migrant couple in New York is wrongfully accused of molesting their children. Their fight for justice exposes the prejudices and discrimination suffered by Filipinos overseas and the shattering of the myth of American dream harbored by Filipino expatriates in search of greener pastures. The true-to-life account charts in tragic detail the ordeal of a family under siege in an alien country to convey an unequivocal rebuke of the ironically ominous aspects of life in the nation dubbed as the home of the free, the land of milk and honey and the greatest in the world.

A 1993 Filipino steamy romantic drama starring Cristina Gonzales, Karla Estrada, and Albert Martinez.

A 1993 Filipino film starring Snooky Serna, Gabby Concepcion, Ruffa Gutierrez, and Miguel Rodriguez.

When it is time for her to give birth, Andrea, a communist insurgent seeks refuge in the city to her best friend Joyce. When Andrea's husband is reportedly killed, she temporarily leaves her son to their care. But before Andrea could return to her baby, she is arrested by the military. With no news of Andrea's whereabouts and presuming her to have been dead, the childless couple decided to keep the child and bring him to the United States. Upon returning to the country after seven years for a visit, Andrea confronts them and tries to claim his son back.

7.4/10

A Filipino dancer performing for the US Filipino community

Gil Portes' drama about an immigrant (Nora Aunor), and her struggle to survive in the United States.

7.7/10

t's a story about a rich brat who happens to fall in-love with his mysterious phone pal and wanted to meet her. It happens to be that phone pal is April. April is handicapped, she feel discourage to show herself up so she ask her best-friend Lenny Santos to meet this phone pal of hers. So in the end, Edgar thought that Lenny is really April (Julie Vega). And April is watching them from the distance every time they went out. He became so fond of her Lenny whom he thought his April. And Lenny is secretly in-love with April's brotherly best-friend PJ. And PJ is in love with April... -catherine_orr

A cursed woman who is beautiful woman at night but transforms into a hukluban, an aging old woman, by sunrise. Immortal, the woman can only hope for true love to break the curse.

Two women in a story of love, desire, passion, and jealousy. Two hearts thirsty for possession.

When they were about to graduate from high school... just after their junior-senior prom, trouble exploded!

8/10

a film by Gil Portes.

7.2/10

Lonely women seek thrills and romance by mail.