Joel Saracho

The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.

When the people of Maratabat finally realize that their time under the corrupt politician clan of the Abubakars has to come to an end— a series of violent acts occur one after another. The people rally behind another clan –the Mahardikas – to end the violence and place a new leader in their region. Will the Mahardikas choose a path of violence or peace? Will it be for honor or will it be for pride?

Pol moves to Manila for better opportunities after his American lover leaves. However, he gets drawn into the gritty world of gay prostitution and sexual slavery.

A young boy frequently visits an old man who lives alone, keeping him always in good company. One night, he chances upon the old man watching a dated clip of himself as a cross-dressing boy. This sparks within the young boy an interest to find out more about the old man's past. What he ultimately discovers aids both him and the old man towards a richer understanding of how the weight of life and identity should be carried.

A woman falls in love with a man, but is wronged by him and his brother. She then tries to exact revenge on him, his brother and his new lover.

The Valentine offering starts with a loveless bespectacled author pondering over possible themes for his trilogy of love stories. He gets a ribbing from his precocious little sister for wasting too much time writing on the computer.

A story of how a violent crime disrupts a quaint rural town in Batangas. A girl’s dead body is discovered and puts the whole town on trial while the former’s companion remains missing. The ensuing media spectacle slowly exposes the town’s secrets. As they celebrate its yearly festival by the lake, an unknowing sleeping evil unravels and haunts the townsfolk.

A news team investigating rumors of aswang killings in a remote barrio are attacked by a group of soldiers, forcing them to run for their lives in the deeps of the forest, where more mystery and danger lay in wait.

A community rushes to a faith healer after learning that one of them was miraculously healed from a deadly disease by the same person. They are torn apart afterwards as the healing brings them a terrible curse that wreaks harm and death.

Mga Kwentong Tsubibo revolves around the individual stories of 8 strangers: a frustrated medical student on the verge of quitting her studies; a dewy-eyed boy who, pressed by poverty and desperation, searches for medicine for his ailing grandmother; a well-loved city mayor whose critically-ill son urgently needs a kidney transplant; a young, engaged couple planning their future together; and an older couple in a fishing village scrambling to raise money for the medical bills of their hospitalized son. The film offers a critical look at the social determinants of health, and how they affect the lives of Filipinos.

In the traffic-laden streets of Metro Manila, two brothers use the chaos of the city roads as a smokescreen for their shady occupation tandem robbers on motorbike. But when a robbery goes sour, the brothers are forced to graduate from low level thieves to high profile hit men in an act that tests both their resolve and their relationship.

Andres Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Bonifacio’s widow is searching for her husband’s missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor tries to play off the various rebel factions and their utopian visions against each other. At the same time, a badly wounded companion of Bonifacio reflects upon the victims a revolution inevitably creates. Mythology, facts and a vibrant sense of history merge.

An Aeta from Baytan village in Zambales makes a living from cutting down and burning of trees and hunting on the foothills of Mt. Pinatubo.

The story of a day in the lives of two men in the city -both proud, indifferent, and bound by the confines of their milieu and their choices in life- and their incidental yet preordained meeting in a one-way alley that would change their lives thereafter. Raising questions of how far people have control over what happens in their lives, the film seeks to explore circumstance versus choice, breaking points, and second chances.

Pepe, a 68-year-old impersonator of a Filipino rock legend, lives alone on the borders of reality, imagination and mysticism. One day, he is finally given the chance to open for the rock legend’s concert but he must do something neither of them has done before – write a love song.

A story of a family's breakdown in the midst of a demonic attack. Dennis, a reporter, accidentally invites the ilawod which is a water spirit into his home where it attaches to his son, Ben.

A social science fiction set in a farming village in the not-so-distant future. Victor lives in a time when the dominant form of education is through installation, a process wherein bodies of knowledge can be installed directly into people's brains using technology owned by big corporations. However, like many others in the agricultural town of Porac, Victor cannot afford the sky-high cost of installation; which he believes is the key to escape his rural life. To raise money for installation, Victor abandons farming and works as the housekeep of a wealthy childhood friend who has become extremely successful after undergoing a series of installations.

In the late 70s, a gang of militias, under the control of the military, terrorizes a remote village in the Philippines. The terror being inflicted on the populace is not just corporal but intensely psychological as well. They were constantly fed with apocryphal tales about the village leader. A few souls are not giving up. They are fighting. The poet/teacher/activist, Hugo Haniway, decides to find out the truth about the disappearance of his wife. A love story set in the darkest period of Philippine history, the Marcos Dictatorship. The narrative and the characters are a composite of real events and real people that happened and existed during the period. A Filipino rock opera.

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.

Drunken customers of a small bar end up fighting over a song in the karaoke machine.

The true story of a young mother who uses story-telling to protect her child from the reality of growing up in prison and the difficult life she endured.

Lisang’s soul is trapped in purgatory due to her bad behavior. Once again, her name is picked and reconsidered. Will she be able to make it this time?

A special forces team is sent to snuff out a drug den, but find themselves trapped inside it after being set-up and betrayed.

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.

It is the year 2034 AD and Southeast Asia has been in the dark for the last three years, literally, because the sun hasn’t shone as a result of massive volcanic eruptions at the Celebes Sea in 2031. Madmen control countries, communities, enclaves and bubble cities. Cataclysmic epidemics razed over the continent. Millions have died and millions have left.

It focuses on Lester who, upon getting the cursed bagua, starts to get all the luck and prosperity he could get in his life, but with deadly consequences.

Lola Igna is a foul-mouthed and stubborn woman who is eager to die but her neighbors are hung up on her winning "the oldest living grandmother in the world." Her long-lost great-great-grandson, Tim, is an aspiring vlogger who wants to latch on her now-famous grandma but ends up giving her a new reason to live.

Three illegal miners journey back to their island after months of toiling in hellish conditions. With their hard-earned money, they traversed the sea, the mountains and the forest until they reached their destination. Or did they really reach their cursed place?

Daisy Resurrection, an overseas Filipino worker, comes home from years of working broad, but her homecoming is unlike any other OFW story you’ve heard of.

A nightmare of a basketball team during their stay at an old dormitory.

A professional horror movie extra prepares for her first ever acting award nomination.

The film is based on the progressive and nationalist youth organization “Kabataang Makabayan” (KM), founded in 1964. Kabataang Makabayan was led and co-founded by Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, four years before they also reestablished the Communist Party of the Philippines

A romantic comedy story on how to move on with heartaches and painful memories. A tale full of tears and laughter as Jaz Cruz deals with different stages of moving on.

Elle, a young model new to the industry, arrives to the set of her first commercial job to discover that the initial idea was scrapped. A mysterious new concept has been developed, but the crew and director keep forgetting to let her know what it is. However, after an afternoon of tight costume fittings, rough prop work, and meetings with creepy producers, Elle begins to suspect something else might be afoot.

Felix is a friendless achiever in high school whose life changes after the arrival of the half-American Snyder brothers, entangling him in their dark ambitions.

The documentary about the history and struggle for Press Freedom of Mosquito Press during the dark days of Marcos dictatorship.

The film follows Gina, who must find an exorcist after her younger sister gets possessed by a dead woman’s spirit.

A Moro child soldier aspires to become a baseball player amidst an all-out war.

In a world where men hide their true love and feelings, where a mother turns a blind eye to her son's identity, and where religion dictates that a man may only lie with a woman — is everything we see truly what it seems to be? The latest release from New Queer Visions takes a look at representations of boys and men, how desires are hidden from those around them, and how self-belief conquers doubt. The short films are: Adult (2017); Hello, Stranger [Dag vreemde man] (2016); Little Potato (2017); Juan Gabriel is Dead [Se murió Juan Gabriel] (2018); The Guest [Le convive] (2017); Contestant #4 (2016).

A young soldier comes home after a siege and faces a different war.

A rich couple often spices up their sexual relationship by doing their so-called Sex Games. But when they meet a new set of "playmates"- a conservative couple, their game becomes more challenging.

When Luna, a battered wife, and Bela, an empowered artist, meet for the first time, their hearts will be freed by the people and society that chain them.

A collection of interwoven stories about life and violence in the Philippines, following a college professor, a university chancellor, a social worker, a police chief, two students, two mothers, and a lawyer.

Tawa Na Lang Tayo

An evil spirit that changes faces infiltrates one family placing one brother in danger while the other tries to save him.

An ex-military sniper who was honorably discharged accepts a mission that will indefinitely change her life in the attempts to make ends meet. It is a quiet character study of when your life’s purpose is stripped away, but you still pursue it, only to realise that it could kill you.

A powerful and moving historical drama that tells the courageous story of three Filipino Catholic priests: Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora.

Tomas, the old venerable mayor of the remote town of Kawalan, learns that the invading Japanese will set up a garrison there. He organizes willing members in his community to set up a hidden settlement in the middle of the forest, where they can live unaffected by the horrors of war. As a young revolutionary during the 1896 fight against Spain and then as a soldier fighting against the Americans, Tomas had witnessed the effects of violence on people and become a pacifist. Now, he must see if inhabitants of the hidden settlement can escape the sufferings wrought by the war.

Two misfits from different planets will find an unlikely love that transcends differences and distance. 223, a Martian princess, flees her planet to get herself out of an arranged marriage then lands on earth, oblivious to its inhabitants’ languages and norms. Jhon, meanwhile, is a kind and hardworking delivery guy who is sent by his boss on his last courier errand before he flies to Malaysia, where he intends to reset his life.

An anthology of nine different episodes dealing with queer relationships during one of the longest lock-downs in the world in Manila.

As she enters a prestigious conservatory, an aspiring singer joins the underdog show choir to try and make it to the nationals. But the journey to the top is steep, and she must go all out with her group to prevent her dream from fizzling out.

Car mechanic Eloy makes a terrible first impression on Ali, who works for a real estate magnate. But both of them are hiding their true personas.

Five people looking for different kinds of love—the tough boss, the reliable practicumer, the career-driven assistant, the hardworking secretary, and the humorous company driver. Failures might stop them in their search, but love finds its way.

Cynthia, a hopeful young woman filled with dreams and love for the people around her. Currently working as a nurse to sustain the needs of her poor but happy family, she has not given up on her greatest dream: to rebuild their family panaderia burnt to ashes in a fire incident years ago. In an unfortunate event, Cynthia is suddenly laid off from her job. This leads her to take on a new gig, a homecare nurse for a grumpy old lady. As she navigates a new job, challenges come along the way. Confused, Cynthia finds support from her family and a stranger named Franco.

As the story unfolds, K-Love is set to take on a journey filled with growing friendships, budding romance, inevitable chaos, and life-long lessons.

Starla

I Heart Davao

A former DEA agent forced into early retirement runs a gift shop in in the Philippines. Despite his best efforts to begin a tranquil new life, he’s pulled back into a world of dangerous people and deadly situations, either through his friends in the local police department or running into people from his old life. And the problem is: he likes it.

Simula sa Gitna is a comedy-drama series that follows the (after)life of souls working as custodians of Middle and guardians to newly deceased people.

When a head chef falls into a coma, it's up to his devoted sous-chef to keep their Filipino fine dining restaurant from closing down.