Kabisera

A man follows a woman through the streets.

Every night, Nana Lusing lies on her bed sleepless because she sees a dark figure looming in her room. Who is this shadow? Is this the devil? Her late husband? A manifestation of her anxieties? Or simply a figment of her imagination?

Intoy has had the hots for Doray since they were kids in Kalye Marino, Cavite City, formerly the American Naval Base in Sangley Point. Both marginalized as the long-lasting effect of American abandonment of the said base, Intoy has become Kalye Marino’s best “tahong” caretaker-with-no-angst-about-poverty, while Doray a cheap prostitute-with-no-guilt, tending to her siblings’ needs. Intoy strives to have his own cages of “tahong” so he can have Doray, not for just a night of quickie sex, but forever. But what will he do to when she offers to drop by his hovel-on-stilts to quench his passion, but before it happens Nature has chosen to play a joke on his tahong cage? Will it be goodbye to his tahong business or to his damsel-in-distress and ultimately to Kalye Marino? From Eros S. Atalia’s 2001 Palanca Grand Prize-winning Short Story, Intoy Syokoy ng Kalye Marino is a love tale minus the obligatory romantic sentiments.

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.

Circus hijinks surround the barangay of Sta. Maria in the midst of an international murder sensation. Swanie, Sta. Maria’s barangay chair and a distant relative of the killer, tries to gain political points by staging a wake for the criminal-turned-celebrity. Meanwhile in faraway Manila, Joanna, Swanie’s runaway son, navigates his way through labyrinthine bureaucracy, to give a neighbor a proper burial. With these two unrelated deaths, estranged mother and son each bury the dead long shelved in their hearts. Amidst these unspoken family burials, the neighborhoods’ penchant for funeral fiestas, gossip and secrets, bizarre social events and the sheer mix of scandal and inebriation complete the picture of dying the Pinoy way.

The title “Kamera Obskura” is a Filipino spelling of the latin “Camera Obscura” which simply means “dark room”. The film’s concept adheres to formalist cinema, where the filmmaker’s thesis is to make a semblance of a vintage film seemingly produced sometime in the late 1920s to early 1930s in the Philippines. The thesis is to conjure up a film from a period that did not really exist in Philippine cinema’s historical cultural heritage as we know it, such as a pseudo-expressionist / experimental Filipino cinema of the silent film era. It is a film within a film. The narrative plays with the idea of a retro-futurist world where a prisoner locked away in a dark chamber for over two decades only sees the reality of the world outside through the small hole in his cell, which projects an image of the city on his wall, the phenomenon of the “camera obscura”.

Powerful but ill-stricken business woman, Vilma Santos navigates her complicated relationship with her caregiver, Angel Locsin and her estranged son, Xian Lim in this story about acceptance, love and forgiveness.

An environmentally conscious movie about Butanding, or whale shark.

Father Greg, a diocesan priest, is reassigned to a parish up in the mountains. He embarks on a mission to help solve the crime, a mission which leads him to the discovery of his own personal salvation.

A television hosts wakes up to her true desires when his best friend's video goes viral.

Mira survives a car accident, and awakens without a memory of her past. As she is regaining pieces of her life with husband Paul and blind daughter Sophie, her business associate Dave convinced her to leave her husband as what she promised her before the accident. However, the situations go more weird as strange things start to occur in her home. Mira is forced to confront her past and discover the real story

Lola Fely lovingly dedicated most of her life to care for her family, she finally decided to pursue her longtime dream to finish Grade 6 at the age of 69. Too old for some, but never too late for Lola Fely who is determined to survive the challenges of studying and adapting to the pre-teen campus life. Other characters include Buboy, the class bully, played by Buboy Villar, and Pinky.

One morning, residents of a rural village are horrified when the sun rises in the West. According to Islamic belief, this phenomenon signals the Apocalypse. As village folk react differently to the situation, a tragedy strikes when one of the residents is raped and her brother brutally murdered as he tries to avenge her. Steep in superstition, the villagers attribute these to the Devil himself.

Charlotte is from a family of beauty queens, but she has yet to win a title of her own. Her final chance is the Hiyas ng Dalampasigan Pageant, and her mother has taken steps to make sure that she wins. But her chances are dashed when the mysterious Samantha suddenly joins the contest. The two become bitter enemies following the contest, but they are soon forced by destiny to team up. It turns out the two have a hidden connection to a mystical past, and must work together to discover the truth about their heritage.

Johnny Quinn has been set up by a drug lord and must find a way to clear his name before the bad guys and his own agency put him in the ground.

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?

A victim of rape by her brothers, Criselle had not known joy in her life. Her so-called mother abused her and made her work to the bones. Her supposedly loving father failed to defend her. The plot thickens as she discovers the true identity of her mother and the twisted fate she had received. Drowning with revenge, Criselle gives her soul to the devil and instantly becomes possessed by it. She plots to kill her entire family and end the torment that had beset her. I

A security guard jumps to the other side of the fence and turns to crime when his meager pay is not enough to keep his wife and children by his side. How far will he go to secure his future and what will he lose/gain on the way?

A young woman running away from a volatile relationship ends up in a small beach resort where it seems everyone is falling in and out of love.

Seven stories with no connection at all but with a common universal theme of doing good deeds and making the right decision.