Jose F. Lacaba
A black comedy film, which focuses on two film workers, Raffy, the clapper, and Dido, a utility boy. Both share the same dream: to direct their own films someday. Their lives as mere "small production people" took a different turn when, together with the people in the unit van they were riding,had an encounter with armed men. Their co-workers were killed, and the two of them were forced to drive the unit van out of fear until it ran out of gas. The van contains equipment for movie production like cameras, lights and film stocks. They ended up in a secluded barrio not yet reached by modern technology, and therefore, the townsfolk knew nothing of the movie industry.
It is about a group of investigative journalists from a sub-par TV station who accidentally scores a scoop that a 21-year-old boy is looking around for his identity… he claims to be the son of the late director Lino Brocka, a known gay filmmaker.
In the bustling city of Olongapo - once the site of the US naval base, an Amerasian drummer for a rock band and tattoo artist is caught in a deadly love triangle with a well-off matron who used to be a sex worker and her 20-year-old daughter whom she gave up for adoption in infancy. The young woman has come from New York where her foster parents have raised her to be reunited with her biological mother whose past subjection to a gang rape by five American servicemen resulted in the pregnancy.
Dr. Jose Rizal was exiled in Dapitan from 1892-1896. These were his last four years. Dapitan served as his prison cell. He always compared it to “a beautiful cage” where he is imprisoned. This was the longest imprisonment Rizal ever had. He became so lost by those times, but still he did not lose his mind. Even there, he continued studying and discovering things. He continued his conversation with his friends, scientists and doctors outside the country.
A family from Pampanga is made destitute by the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in the region. The wife decides to find work in the metropolis. She becomes an insurance agent by day and a nightclub guest relations officer by night. In exchange for sexual favors, she gets to sign up moneyed clients for million-peso policies.
Set during the terrifying reign of Filipino despot, Marcos, two upper caste but very different strangers team up to try and survive the physical and mental torture they undergo after they are suddenly jailed. Geny is the conservative businessman while Serge is more sensitive and outgoing. Both of the young men's parents give all of their money, but the government refuses to free them. Even a mutual hunger strike fails to move their jailers. In desperation, Geny and Serge begin plotting their escape.
The heartbreaking plight of the overseas contract workers is dramatized in the tragic tale of Flor Contemplacion - the Filipino domestic helper in Singapore convicted of murder and condemned to death. Accounts culled from reports of Amnesty International as well as classified info gathered in the Asian city-state itself are combined with actual footages and recreated scenes of events leading to the heroine's execution.
The year before the Edsa revolt in a remote barrio, cult fanatics brutally kill a foreigner priest who administered the last rites to an alleged rebel summarily executed himself by the very group. In the city upon the toppling of the Marcos regime, an ex-priest leads a crew of political detainees in jubilation. After his release, he marries his human rights activist-girlfriend and decides to join a fact-finding mission that will bring him to the scene of the heinous crime a year ago. There the cultists continue to slaughter suspected communist rebels and terrorize the villagers. A native of the village is the ex-priest's old flame who turns out to have a seven-year-old son by him.
An erstwhile boatman wants to do a little more than paddle his own canoe in the town famed for its waterfalls. He leaves the village of his roots for the city and lands a job as a live-sex actor called toro in street lingo derived from the Spanish term for bull. Quick successes in his newfound profession delude him into regarding that the measure of a man is in his trousers. He has a partner on stage and off. Despite her cynicism and tough veneer, she sees in him a way out of the slums and the red light district.
A nun who acts as a counselor in a home for unwed mother undergoes political awakening when her friend and namesake belonging to the same congregation as hers inspires her to get involved in the struggle for justice and freedom of striking workers in a cooking oil company.
A worker nicknamed Turing finds himself in a quandary when the printing press where he is hired as a casual is hit by a strike. As his wife badly needs medication after getting pregnant, he is forced to sign a waiver inhibiting him from joining any mass action in exchange for a wage advance from his employer. Left with no choice, he turns scab and is ostracized by his friends and colleagues. At the hospital where the wife undergoes treatment, she would not be released until all the bills have been fully paid. The situation further heads for the worse when the firm is finally shut down. Turing opts for a desperate move.
Angela Delmar (Hilda Koronel) works as a waitress for one of the seedier bars in Manila. There she meets five patrons of the bar, who also turn out to be a gang specializing in drugging and raping girls and later on selling them to prostitution.
Poldo, a lowly security in a publishing firm, dreams to be rich. He becomes the personal bodyguard to his employer's son, Sonny, when he impresses the latter with his courage and skills during a quarrel where Poldo defended Sonny. Poldo gets a taste of his boss' carefree and extravagant lifestyle and thinks that he accepts him as a friend. In one of the nightclubs they frequent, Sonny is smitten by dancer Cristy and aggressively pursues her despite a warning from San Pedro, the movie director with whom Cristy has an affair. When they chance upon each other, Sonny and San Pedro fight. Poldo comes to his boss' rescue and guns down San Pedro. In subsequent circumstances, Poldo would soon arrive at a bitter realization. As he could not see in Sonny the benefactor that he pictured him to be, Poldo finds himself alone, abandoned and betrayed.
Babae...Ngayon at Kailanman is a film adaptation of three Filipino short story masterpieces: Nick Joaquin's "May Day Eve", Amador Daguio's "Wedding Dance" and Wilfrido Nollega's "Juego de Prenda.
