Sue Prado
Celine, a grieving widow returns to her estranged husband’s family’s island estate to scatter his ashes and claim her inheritance. Paeng and Celine de Miranda, both doctors, seemed to be the perfect couple, beloved by the islanders who were beneficiaries of their many medical missions. But the marriage fell apart, marked by her being unable to bear children and rumors of his infidelities. The once idyllic island is now mired in poverty, squalor, and decadence. It is now up for sale to Korean investors.
A heartwarming drama based on a true story of the Pandan Water Pipeline Project where Japanese and Filipinos work together while overcoming various hardships. Every year more than 1 million children die because they do not have access to clean drinking water. In Pandan, a rural village on the Panay Island, many people were suffering from kidney disease because they did not have access to clean drinking water. The project was started with the aim to solve this problem by building a 10 kilometre pipeline. Asuka (Tsuji Miyu), a college student, joins the project without giving it much thought when asked by a friend. After she arrives she quickly realizes things are worse than she expected. The labor is intense because they have no funds and the local people are hostile toward the Japanese. But amid the hardship, a five year old girl called Amy (Miel Espinoza) welcomes her kindly. The two become good friends through a picture book and Origami.
Dakip is a little boy who lives with his parents – Day and Ric – inside Camp Delgado, a makeshift prison inside a military camp for both rebels and criminals. Day does her best to shelter the child from the harsh realities of their life. She tells stories about an enchantress named Liway, with songs and imagination to help keep her boy from trauma. However, at the tail end of the Martial Law, her own dark past catches up on her and the lives of the detainees become increasingly difficult. She is confronted with the cruel possibility that the best interest of her child means never seeing her again. This is based on a true story.
Intoy was left to take care of his parents when his sister Vicky leaves to work overseas. Eventually, like many women in the island, Vicky married a foreigner thinking it will solve all her family’s problems. Living in a remote area, Intoy can only get in touch with his sister by scrambling atop strange rock formations on the island.
This is not a film by Khavn. A crime-thriller retro-road movie based on the Kuratong Baleleng Rubout Massacre of 1995.
This is a story of Sol, a farmer-teacher in a public school near Nueva Ecija. Following an unexpected death, without any family to organize a burial, a friend and former student decides to carry her coffin traveling to different places, similar to the stations of the cross.
Pipo makes ends meet by taking on the toughest jobs. Life is more difficult because he’s deaf. He supports himself and his teenage lover Cyril. His irate boss is getting difficult and Ben, his childhood friend wants his daughter Cyril back. Like a bomb, Pipo’s ticking to explode, anytime soon.
When her husband unexpectedly died, Sinang had to take over their farm. A strong-willed daughter of an old farmer, she has the heart and the touch. While her sisters consider selling their inherited parcels of the land to a subdivision developer, Sinang firmly refuses to sell hers. Resolutely, she plows it, nurse the rice seeds, going through the whole process with diligence. The experience is filled with happy and sad moments, still in the end — love for family and for their farm prevails.
A young man searches for his father and encounters natural and supernatural forces, which ultimately lead him to unveil his true identity.
8-year-old Kakay aims to win a spot in the Regional Science Quiz Bee, an academic event in which she believes will be her ticket to finally meet her father in Los Angeles, CA.
Raped and pregnant, an OFW rids herself of unwanted baggage on the flight back home.
It tells the story of four friends: a single mom hoping to complete her family, a martyr wife who will do anything to keep her family from falling apart, a mistress who is desperate to have her own family, and a young woman who fully supports them.
It is a custom in some towns in Pangasinan to offer a life of an animal when constructing buildings, but one day during the town's fiesta they discover the body of a young boy that leads to a chain of story and a chain of deaths.
After surviving the Death March, Martial Law and the loss of his legs, Justino became an atheist. But when his wife dies, a part of him is yearning to believe in life beyond death; just for a chance to be with her again. Searching for parts of her he can still hold on to, he devours her diaries for information into their past --opening a Pandora's Box of secrets.
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?
In the midst of the traditional moryonan rites observed every Holy Week in the island province of Marinduque, Mariana receives a devastating news from abroad - her sister, Magda, who was working as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia is dead. Mariana and her mother then have to deal with the tedious and expensive process of repatriating the remains of Magda.
A young woman by the name of Dalisay, known as Daly, lives in a small hamlet in the Filipino countryside. She’s an observant, smart and intelligent girl who through an unfortunate accident lost both her father and mother. Her older sister Anne works in a nearby city as a waitress in a restaurant. Her modest income allows for both of them to live sparingly. Every day Daly passes in front of the Sari Sari or general store owned by Nida, a woman that lives not far from her. Nida is an artist, and a solitary never-been-married artist. Daly, hungry for knowledge, often spends time with Nida, the older woman feeding the natural curiosity of the girl. Nida ultimately teaches Daly what higher love is and how the rhythm of nature affects each of our souls.
Dreaming of a better life, Balong counts the sacks of rice they have left, the money they need, and the little moments that led to an inevitable departure that will leave them all affected.
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.
A family is in ruins after the last male member dies. To salvage their future, the matriarch Kadiguia decides to look for a suitable husband for the eligible Tonina to continue the line of martyrs and warriors. Many miles away in the city, Aida secretly works in a hotel after falling victim to an illegal recruiter. She hides this fact from her family who believes that she is in faraway Kuwait working as a nanny.
ORDINARY PEOPLE is a family portrait of Jane, 16, and her boyfriend, Aries, who live on their own in the chaotic streets of Manila. Surviving as pickpockets, the lives of the young couple change when they suddenly become teenage parents. But not even a month into parenthood, their child is stolen from them. In order to retrieve the child, the young couple is forced to take desperate measures.
Filemon Mamon is a high school student who desires two things, to win the heart of the girl he loves and to be the lead in a musical play about his Philippine hero Andres Bonifacio. But, he has a big problem -- his weight. His out of work father and his OFW mother leave him to adhere to the guidance of his grandmother who loves to cook and who loves to remind him that "to be fat is to be healthy, and to be healthy is to be fat". Is stardom only for the skinny? Through song and dance, Filemon discovers himself by overcoming the realities of life. He may not look the part, but Filemon learns about heroism in the most unexpected way. He becomes the hero not only to his family and friends, but also to himself.
A group of high school students who are spending the night in a old mansion. When they learn that the house is haunted they set to look out for ghosts just for fun , but they find out soon enough that the urban legends are real.
Leonardo Rossellini is an Italian priest from Rome, assigned to a parish in Payatas, a poor area of Metromanila, Philippines. Leonardo's mission is to counsel battered women and teach poor children. But soon his peace of mind is distraught by the encounter of a woman he used to love when he was still a seminarian. This young woman, Merlinda, is now married to a violent man. She also has a 6 years old child who is missing. Leonardo decides to help her find her son.
Six men. Six failed marriage. One wedding to restore their faith in second chances. This is the bittersweet saga of six men who have separated from their wives. Inspired by true stories, their parallel and overlapping tales offer six different portraits of the failure of monogamy in a society where divorce is supposedly not an option. Ironically, fate and circumstance bring them together at a church wedding, where one of them takes a second chance at marital bliss.
Many have been aspiring for the position of Major Mac Favila, who is every cadet's ideal officer considering he is sharp, snappy, witty, and most of all, the most masculine among the school's many officers. Private Abel Sarmiento, who was abused when he was a child and Cain Fujika, a Filipino-Japanese whose mother worked abroad as a japayuki are the top contenders for his position.
A heartwarming father and son tale, Bonifacio focuses on the life of a 50-year-old single father Jose Bonifacio "Boni" Garcia and his daily battles with illiteracy and discrimination. He is determined to over come this through education even if it means studying in the same elementary school as his son. Through his resilience and creativity, Bonifacio is able to provide a pleasant home to his son and make life more interesting and bearable for both of them and ultimately find his seemingly lost value as a father and as an individual.
A snake creature secretly lurks inside a shopping mall. A family is fed a meal that turns them into monsters. An airplane hijacking is interrupted by the birth of a tiyanak.
Bigkis is a progressive drama that reveals many of the problems and intense pressure in an overcrowded public maternity hospital. It tells the story of Mariel, an inner-city teen and a member of band faced with the realization of an unwanted pregnancy and its consequences. It also tells the story of Edel, a diligent young hospital attendant who witnesses all the predicament of these unfortunate individuals. This drama takes a straightforward look at the issue of teen pregnancy and single parenting and the plight of small public maternity hospital workers doing the dirty works without receiving any sufficient income.
Blondie (Vivian Velez) is personified as three things: a hardworking businesswoman, a wife who’s been cheated on, and a mother of three. She is a 50-something woman with poor eyesight who works as an upfront candle vendor outside Quiapo church and sells Cytotec, an abortion pill, on the side.
Mabuti accidentally finds a stash of money that could bring an end to her family’s financial problems: is the solution that simple or is it loaded with complications?
In the 1970s, a widow in a remote village takes over her husband’s barber shop. She becomes the laughing stock of the male-dominated community and in the process discovers freedom and liberation.
A man gets involved with two mystic sisters who happened to save him from dying ashore.
Guam, U.S.A. Thursday, November 24, Thanksgiving Day. Alex, a local newspaper photographer, gets into a “green card marriage” with her good friend James, a Guam-born Filipino. Miriam, a former member of the Philippine press and now an established Guam journalist, longs to repair a damaged relationship with her American husband. Ella, a hotel housekeeper for almost 20 years, finds means of sending her 88-year old mother to the Philippines with the uncertainty of coming back. As the island of Guam celebrates this classic American holiday when people count their blessings and give thanks, the lives of the three Filipina immigrants intersect and find themselves at a tug-o-war of sacrifice and significance where they must find their home or must they find it somewhere else.
In sickness and in health, should marriage really be an unconditional partnership that should never be broken? Christina, in her 30's, is married to Hector, a husband who's paralyzed and therefore physically incompetent to consummate their marriage. She wants to liberate herself from a sexless union. Her needs as a woman are unfulfilled. But her love for Hector, and her commitment to him coupled with the dictates of her faith and marital vows, and her sympathy and care for her husband keeps her in "cage of marriage," where she suffers in melancholic solitude, yet contemplates on freedom and rediscovering her true worth. - Written by Lilit Reyes
Young Berto is a glue-sniffing, street child that has fallen prey to human traffickers. When the street urchin meets Somascan Bro. Jerry, he finds refuge in the Casa Miani orphanage. But the brotherhood of the streets compel him to follow their code.
Corazon revolves around the love story of a married couple during the times of Japanese rule in the Philippines who's having a hard time conceiving a child. After joining traditional fertility rites in honor of certain patron saints, their prayers are eventually answered but unexpected circumstances will lead to their baby's death. At which point the conflict of the story will begin
Sarah is a nurse at a Public Maternity Hospital. The hospital is abuzz with pregnant mothers of all shapes and sizes in different stages of labor. The hospital is short on staff on Christmas Day so Sarah is forced to put in a double shift. Sarah observes the women coming and going in her ward, noting who is a first-timer and who is a veteran. Meanwhile, the wards are overcrowded : two women and their babies sharing single beds while those in labor are spilling unto the hallways. Sarah takes these all in stride, her heart and mind laboring over her own personal pains.
The film tells the story of a tomboyish Ilocano lass from Ilocos Norte, Thelma (Maja Salvador) whose family is beset with challenges when she discovers her uncanny gift of speed. Her talent then opens doors for her – to elevate her family’s situation and change the course of her own life. But to do that she will have to run- against all obstacles, against personal hindrances, against shadows from her past, and against her own self-doubts. Will she ever accomplish her dream as a successful athlete?
Teoriya is a story about loss that centers on the film’s main character, Jimmuel Apostol II. After hearing the news that his father has passed away, Jim goes back home to Zamboanga City after leaving ten years ago in bad terms with his father. He arrives in Zamboanga only to find that his father has already been buried and he doesn’t know where. Jim takes a journey around the Zamboanga peninsula and ultimately into his own self, finding the missing piece of his life.
A woman (Mercedes Cabral) shares her story as a prostitute in front of the camera. A survivor, she looks back at her life as a mother. Milagros (Sue Prado) and Elena (Jam Pérez) are sisters tilling “camote” (sweet potato) in a dry land. Poverty provokes Elena to migrate as a mail-order bride in Japan while Milagros stays to take care of the family. Eos (Boots Anson Roa) is a widow who falls in love with a younger man, Rodrigo (Rome Mallari). They try to make the relationship work amidst the pressure of their family and the society.
Based on a true story, Cuchera is about Filipino drug mules, drug couriers and their recruiters. It follows the story of Isabel, a veteran drug mule, in her first attempt at running her own drug transshipment operation between Manila and China. Isabel’s character is based on the story of an actual Filipina drug mule who was caught with eight capsules of heroin lodged in her sex organ, 48 in the rectum and 11 in her abdomen after an x-ray was conducted by Chinese authorities. Cuchera presents an accurate depiction of how some Filipinos end up becoming entrenched in the world of illegal drugs. Currently, the Philippines leads all Southeast Asian countries in the number of nationals arrested for drug smuggling charges in China. As of 2009, there are currently 95 Filipinos languishing in various jails in Chinese territories---four of whom are on death row. Violators include minors who enter China with fake passports.
A few seconds before the inevitable end, a lost soul of a crooked cop tries to find his way back home, continues a semblance of life, and finds meaning and redemption for his corrupted existence, all along dreaming of a paradise where his hope of salvation lies.
An aging assassin hides in a facility for abandoned senior citizens to protect a daughter he left years ago.
The film has been ten years in the making, and over time it has grown to become what the director himself has called an artistic testament. It is simultaneously his most personal and most provocative film. A film about growing older, about losing, about the special moments one remembers, and about the director's own circling around the essence of eroticism.
Inspired by a true news account, this is the astounding story of a lone deranged hijacker who has struggled to survive in the chaos of modern Philippine society.
A grieving widow attempts to find the missing piece of her husband's remains.
Led by the country's first ever female, non-Caucasian president, the United States of America launches a Green Card video contest to attract new immigrants. Four applicants, from Japan, China and the Philippines, each desperate for a change of scenery, pour their hearts out in front of a video camera on the eve of the contest deadline.
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.
