An ex-seminarian slash communist runs a hotel in Baguio. He then meets a handsome upcoming lawyer. A once-a-year trip to Baguio by the lawyer and conversations with the hotel owner develop into an affair which encompasses decades of socio-political changes in the country.
Senator Gabriel Alcaraz is preparing to deliver a privilege speech alleging corruption in the highest levels of government. On his way to the Senate, he gets wind of a plot against him. The police seek to arrest him for his part in an operation decades ago. Suspecting that the administration isn’t willing to give him a fair trial, Alcaraz goes into hiding abroad, hoping to find a way to clear his name and eventually return to his family. Back home, an old colleague is put in charge of finding him, and his family suffers under the pressure of public scrutiny.
A journalist investigates a woman with the name of China Doll. Soon, he discovers his knowledge of her turns out to be dangerous.
The episodically connected lives of four college friends unfold throughout the incipient martial law years, as they struggle to define their sexual and professional desires and how best to attain them.
Two filmmakers try to create a film venturing on the life of Jose Rizal. Before they do that, they try to investigate on the heroism of the Philippine national hero. Of particular focus is his supposed retraction of his views against the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish regime in the Philippines which he expressed primarily through his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The investigation was done mainly by "interviewing" key individuals in the life of Rizal such as his mother Teodora Alonso, his siblings Paciano, Trinidad, and Narcisa, his love interest and supposed wife Josephine Bracken, and the Jesuit priest who supposedly witnessed Rizal's retraction, Fr. Balaguer. Eventually, the two filmmakers would end up "interviewing" Rizal himself to get to the bottom of the issue.
In a time in the Philippines when the concept of divorce does not exist, a young woman has an affair with a married man. Eventually, they move in together, and that is when the problems start.
Pandanggo has three stories with parallel themes converging in one event, the Kasilonawan Festival in Obando: a career woman learning to dance tango who is torn between her dance partner and live-in partner has to choose the man who will satisfy her dream of raising a family; a wife whose wish to conceive a baby boy to make her husband happy brings her feet to the festival, but fate has other plans of bringing the child into her life; and a modern woman who, amidst her medical condition that might render her childless for the rest of her life, finds connection with an ancient lore about fertility.
Gene works for the local underworld syndicate but always treats his abductees with kindness. He begins a dangerous affair with ex-bar girl Dolor, who's routinely beaten by her rich husband. When the cops move in on Gene's gang and Dolor's husband winds up dead, the couple flees with the law and their enemies in hot pursuit.
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.
For Horacia Somorostro, living has become a veritable reclusion perpetua, an imprisonment. Life’s spins and randomness has been very difficult, vicious and inexplicable for her. The year is 1997. Princess Diana dies in a violent car crash. The world is saddened by the death of Mother Theresa. And the Philippines is gripped with fear. It has become the kidnap capital of Asia.
A mysterious and powerful being in the river catches the attention of the people living around it.
A religious man who does petty crimes, PONCHING, gets into a new venture, text scamming, thinking it will not really hurt anyone. One day, his seemingly "innocent" text scam accidentally cons a recipient into thinking he is the bastard child of their late relative.
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.
Infinite struggles among four men in their twilight years, confined in a hospice facility or home for the aged. Their gray hair grows and fades unnoticed, their lives enter the void of oblivion. Everything unfolds so naturally into their swan song until their body pains and heartaches yield the same intensity, when their hearing and their feelings become permanently impaired; and when their blurry vision and memories become “clear” signs that the inevitable state of death is as fleeting as the vibrancy of life itself.
A complex half-Pinay, half-Caucasian lady looking for American living in Olongapo City (Philippines) who tries to get her passport and US visa in order to meet her father personally for the first time.
The silent witness to the life and love of Juanita. It is her sanctuary, the place where she creates dishes for her family, her friends, even enemies and strangers. Through cooking, she gets to know the people around her, and in return, reveal herself to them.
Disrespected by his teenage son, a 40-year-old High School dropout tries to solve this problem by returning to school which only makes his son hate him even more. Amidst the struggle between them, an unexpected event changes everything.
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.
Carmen, a middle-aged cook, is about to close down her eatery at the foot of Mt. Arayat when a white American teenage boy named Mercury approaches her and begs for work in exchange of nothing but shelter.
An edgy film that tackles anxiety/panic attacks triggered by retrograde amnesia in a person desperately seeking and rebuilding a distorted past . He realizes in the end that his future cannot and must not be defined solely by his past. His present is as relevant as his past to his future.