Joe Gruta

Maya was walking home in her province when the service stops beside her and offers her to hitch. She innocently takes the ride to reach home faster. To Maya’s horror, the service did not stop at her place. She soon realizes she has been taken, along with the other kids who are inside the crammed school service. Soon, Maya finds herself hours and hours away from home, in an unfamiliar land -Manila. By dusk, the children are dropped off along the national highway to work by begging for alms. Forced to struggle with the harsh conditions of street life, Maya continues to hope for her dreams and chase for her freedom that may never happen.

A historical drama. A story of struggle, hard work, and hope – even when the very reason for hope is all of a sudden gone. A group of farmers in Bicol are at the mercy of Don Jose, a strict and abusive landlord. 20-year-old Lucio, son of Carding, a former member of the Hukbalahap, their follow corn-growers and respective families, anticipate the arrival of President Ramon Magsaysay in their area, for genuine land reform to take place.

Only the famous family that doesn't weep can help reunite a desperate woman with her own.

Amidst the vast sugar plantations of Negros in Southern Philippines, a matriarch lies in the throes of death. Her children rush home to confront the crisis as news of the impending death of their well-loved mother spreads among the community. There, in their ancestral house, the siblings are forced to deal with the issues of inheritance, tradition and the family legacy. It is a familiar tale. After all, every family has its story. And to each one, its own deserved secrets.

The movie Edna is a unique take about real and imagined fears of overseas Filipino workers. Staged in three parts- the film attempts to walk the audience from a thrilling arrival to an astonishing departure.

The film splits itself between two timelines. In 2006, Ada (Isabelle Daza) is basing her thesis on a massacre that occurred twenty years prior in a village called Acacia. Her mother Cecilia was part of a fact-finding mission into a massacre, and Ada’s inquiries bring up her history as a member of the NPA. The other timeline traces the relationship of Ka Felix and Ka Jimmy (Joem Bascon and Jake Cuenca), two rebels who fall in love, despite the movement’s laws against such a pairing.

On a storm-ravaged island that has seen its share of tragedy, a person who had been assumed dead reappears and ignites a frenzy of reactions, ranging from ecstatic religious fervor to fear.

Melba is the wife of a slain farmer-leader whose murder is attributed to an incumbent governor. She goes to the city to appeal the case and to seek out a new life after the tragedy. Working as a staff member at the office of City Councilor, she is introduced to the life inside politics. Eventually she will be deeply involved, as her decision to marry the budding politician lays a carefully planned agenda.

A glimpse of what went on behind the making of the iconic Ishmael Bernal film.

The heart-tugging story of children who scavenge for metal scraps in the murky waters of Manila Bay, often risking their lives in the process.

A neglected and unloved orphan raised by poor relatives in the slums of Manila is wrongfully convicted of murder that resulted from a heist he was compelled to join. Unable to prove his innocence and his minor age, he is thrown into the cruel, perilous and horrifying world of death row where he is introduced to other inmates all awaiting their execution by lethal injection. One of them is a 70-year-old man who detests the jungle of jail and is feared by all the convicts. He would serve as the boy’s protector and savior and in the process touch and shape enormously the violated youth’s life in prison and beyond.

A lowly farmer whose wife is afflicted with a lingering illness gets involved in kidnapping that goes awry and culminates in tragedy. Years later, he turns to a crusading lady journalist to confess the details of the sensational crime that remains unsolved.

Three boys are confronted with what they perceive as a challenge to prove their masculinity in a story about sexual awakening. Paul is a show-off whose obnoxious ways mask deep insecurities. Cris is the klutz who tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing no one. And Caloy is the scholarly over-protected son more interested in surfing the net than meeting people. They are out to prove themselves real men but they almost always fall flat on their faces. During an out-of-town school seminar, the trio sees a good chance to finally visit a prostitution house with the three other villains in their lives trying also vainly to thwart their every move by picturing them as bad boys. So Paul, Cris and Caloy enter the red house but, instead of losing their innocence, they uncover the shocking reality that girls forced to work there are minors.

In the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, a volcano dormant for more than 400 years, the residents of the whole town of San Simon in Pampanga was engulfed by dust and thick mudflow called lahar. The whole surviving residents of the devastated community are relocated to transitional evacuation center, a tent city, where different and unique personalities meet: Sheila, a migrant worker from Germany who is struggling to keep her family intact at all costs; Sonia who is looking for her missing husband while pretending as a handicapped so she can beg on the streets; Ditas, who returns in Pampanga after getting pregnant in Manila; and Elena, a mother who lost her whole family in the eruption, yet she keeps a positive outlook in life that as long as she remembers her relatives no amount of tragedy could keep her from reminiscing of their once peaceful lives.

Andie and Ira sincerely think that they are deeply in love and ready to face the world. They attempt to tie the knot and build a life of their own. Their parents are shocked by their children's behavior until they realize their shortcomings led the kids to run away from their boarding school.