Esoterica: Manila

Drawing from his personal adventures, film director, Elwood Perez veers away from standard-issue plot conventions in this paradoxically moral tale of a young man en route to becoming a creative artist.

Above the Clouds

A 15-year-old boy goes on a hiking trip with his estranged grandfather, and overcomes the grief of losing his parents on a mountain above the clouds.

Lorna

Lorna is sixty year old woman who is constantly searching for the right man, having failed at so many relationships. Having lived close to a lifetime alone, she decides to take another stab at moving on and more importantly, love.

Heaven's Judgment

An oppressed housemaid has transformed herself into a wealthy and powerful business mogul through sheer dint of talent, ambition and driving need to avenge herself on her tormentors.

Lafang

Loving You

Call center plays the center in this multi-level love stories. Call center staff - Tom and Lane - are best friends, but they are lovers in denial. Tom's bestfriend, Jepoi, is a call center instructor who is in love with a 40-year-old professor, Cyrill. Their May-December love affair is hampered by the dictates of a prejudiced society. Wannabe rockstar, the boyish chic Tonee, is clueless about the growing affection of Ryan, a fellow call center trainee. The group fashionista, Bry, is an aspiring model who unexpectedly found love with a cab driver, Axel.

Pagnanasa

A young travelling salesman Rodel and a young innocent student Aleli. Aleli befriended a mature woman who is expert in love. The lady taught her and lured her to fantasize and to seek the love offered by men. Aleli became curious about the love that this lady is talking about and is out there to find love for herself until she dated Rodel who ended up raping her. After her painful encounter with Rodel, she got addicted to that sexual feeling and affection that he gave to her. This terrible experience made her to crave for more love from Rodel. Is her addiction with making love to Rodel going to stop or will it continue until she becomes a slave to it.

Kristo

The Gospel of John is reimagined as a Filipino pasyon tale.

Sanglaan

Follows the lives of four different people, each linked to the other by the house of business. Olivia, owner of the establishment, yearns for her late husband and denies the onset of old age. She lives with her appraiser Amy, a romantic who is doing almost everything for love. Kanor serves as the pawnshop security guard. He holds Olivia in high esteem for letting him and his wife stay in the apartment above the shop. Kanor opens his house to boarder David, a seaman in transit.

ICU Bed #7

Lolo Joseph, the stubborn and loud-mouthed patriarch, whose illness tears his two daughters Cely and Beth to make a decision whether to end or prolong his life.

The Last Day of the Week

Ang Huling Araw ng Linggo spans a week in a life of seven individuals with interconnected narratives.

Maid

Nelia leaves her poor town to work as a maid in the city. Perceived as a lower-class citizen, Nelia gets harsh treatment that she does not deserve from her employer. She toils day and night to fulfill the wishes of her family at the expense of working herself to death. Ultimately, it is also in the city where she discovers an opportunity to move to a better life in the arms of a lover.

As He Sleeps

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

Burlesk Queen Ngayon

Her name is Angela and she’s a woman of the world. Daring and defiant, she works as a stripper in a night club to support her family. Her work, she thinks, has made her indiffirent to love. But the day comes when she meets the guy who makes her frigid heart beat again.

Ilusyon

Set in Philippine post-American colonialist era, where the American influence was still apparent, Ilusyon tells the story of Miguel, a young man from the countryside, who decides to visit his father, Pablo, a Modernist painter in Manila. Upon his arrival, he discovers that his father has decided to leave for the province but he opted to stay in Manila for a vacation. One day, he meets Stella, a nude model originally scheduled to pose for Miguel's father. Struck by her beauty, Miguel does the unthinkable - he pretends to be his father the painter. Developing a relationship based on a lie, things turn for the worse as Stella begets a strange skin disease that turns off Miguel. Surrounded by strange characters - a talking cow, a talkative mailman and a nosy landlady - Miguel is driven into a frenzy realization about beauty, lust, love and being true to oneself. An ambiguous ending underlines the surreal tone of the film.

Noli Me Tángere

Based on the revolutionary novel by Jose Rizal, the story follows Crisostomo Ibarra, a young Filipino man who returned from his studies in Europe, who discovered that his father was falsely imprisoned and abused by the Spanish friars, including Padre Damaso. While he is making plans to uplift the lives of his fellow countrymen, he faced resistance from the Spanish colonial government.

Malvarosa

A poignant story of a family’s struggles in life. It tells of Rosa, who lives in the slums near the railroad tracks, with her mother and five brothers. Her mother wallows in guilt and depression when her drunkard father is run over by a train. Though she is set to marry her fiancé, Rosa chooses to put her family’s needs before her own. Rosa’s brothers also carry their own burdens, except for one, the youngest, Avelino, who helps his sister shoulder the weight of the family’s problems.

(Filipino: In the Name of the Father, Mother, and Children)

In 1970s Mindanao, a man and his family take arms to defend the people against those who would oppress them.

Pedro Calungsod: Batang Martir

Pedro Calungsod, a young Filipino man, leaves his Visayan native roots to join the Spanish Jesuit priest Fr. Diego de San Vitores in his mission to the Marianas Islands (Guam) in 1668. The San Diego Mission arrives in the Marianas where the young Pedro, a trained catechist and mission assistant, begins work for Fr. Diego de San Vitores in baptizing the Chamorro natives, preaching the holy gospel and spreading the good news of salvation through the Christian faith amidst paganism, doubt and disbelief. Despite the longing for his father and the threats to their lives, even at the peril of death, Pedro and Fr. Diego continued their missionary work. They roamed the dangerous islands and baptized many more natives and continued to enlighten them about Christianity.

Do Re Mi

Three girls divided by personalities, cultural backgrounds and principles have one thing in common, their love for music.

RDX: Robert Dony Xavier

Once-menacing, anger fueled, trained martial arts fighters Robert, Dony and Xavier settle down to peaceful lives, after a significant event prompts them. Fate orchestrates their reunion and return from exile to their fighting ways, when their history linger ominously and one of them faces a violent attack.

Sam & Kate

Bill is an ailing larger-than-life father being taken care of by his son Sam, who has returned home to care for him. While home, Sam falls for a local woman, Kate. At the same time, Bill starts to fall for her mom, Tina.

About Dry Grasses

A young art teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after completing his mandatory duty in a remote village school in Anatolia. After accusations of inappropriate contact with a student surface, his hopes of escape fade and he descends further into an existential crisis.

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

After a Vietnamese woman dies in a car crash in Saigon, her brother-in-law and her young son transport her body back to the former’s hometown in rural Vietnam, where they plan to give her a funeral.

Gigi & Nate

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

My Favourite Cake

Mahin lives alone in Tehran since her husband’s death and her daughter’s departure for Europe, until an afternoon tea with friends leads her to break her solitary routine and revitalize her love life.

Palazzina LAF

Caterino is a worker at the Ilva factory in Taranto. When the company executives decide to use him as a spy to identify the workers they should get rid of, Caterino starts to track his colleagues, in search of reasons to report them. He then asks to be assigned himself to the Palazzino LAF where as punishment, some employees sit out their time with no job assignment. There he discovers that what looks like paradise is actually a strategy to psychologically break troublesome workers.

Love Me Instead

Accompanied by a ward, a prisoner travels to his hometown to reconnect with his daughter and make amends, but a tragic truth mars his journey.

The House of Flowers: The Movie

The De La Mora siblings concoct a mischievous plan to break into their old family home to retrieve a hidden treasure of significant importance.

Bennett's War

After surviving an IED explosion in combat overseas, a young soldier with the Army Motorcycle Unit is medically discharged with a broken back and leg. Against all odds he trains to make an impossible comeback as a motocross racer in order to support his family.

Oskar's Dress

Since Ben has been living apart from his ex-wife Mira and his children, his life has fallen apart. But unexpectedly, he gets a second chance: when Mira, pregnant to the teeth, has to be hospitalized, his children live with him again. This time, everything will be fine - he thinks! But his son Oskar brings a small problem: he wears a dress that he doesn't want to take off.

Dhamaka

When a cynical ex-TV news anchor gets an alarming call on his radio show, he sees a chance for a career comeback — but it may cost his conscience.

Juliette in Spring

Juliette goes back in her hometown to spend some time with her family. She finds herself between a loving but moody father, a New Age mother, a sister in the midst of an existential crisis, and a grandmother slowly losing her mind. Buried memories and family secrets rise to the surface in this sweet, tender and sometimes extravagant family portrait.

Nobody Knows I'm Here

Memo lives on a remote Chilean sheep farm, hiding a beautiful singing voice from the outside world. A recluse with a glittery flair, he can't stop dwelling on the past, but what will happen once someone finally listens?

In the Name of the Land

Pierre is 25 when he returns from Wyoming to his fiancée and take over the family farm. Twenty years later, the farm expanded and so did the family. It's the time of happy days, at least at the beginning. The debts accumulate and Pierre is exhausted at work. Despite the love of his wife and children, he is slowly falling...

Tigertail

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

Return to Dust

Humble, unassuming Ma and timid Cao have been cast off by their families and forced into an arranged marriage. They have to combine their strength and build a home to survive. In the face of much adversity, an unexpected bond begins to blossom, as both Ma and Cao, uniting with Earth's cycles, create a haven for themselves in which they can thrive.

God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya

In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, every January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive after it. Good fortune and prosperity are guaranteed to the man who retrieves it. This time, Petrunya dives into the water on a whim and manages to grab the cross before the others. Her competitors are furious - how dare a woman take part in their ritual? All hell breaks loose, but Petrunya holds her ground. She won her cross and will not give it up.

The Stolen Caravaggio

Valeria, young secretary of a producer, lives with an eccentric mother and secretly writes for a successful screenwriter, Alessandro. One day, she receives an unusual present from a stranger: it’s the plot of a movie about the mysterious but really-happened theft of a famous Caravaggio’s painting.

Home

An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.