My Teacher Who Doesn't Know How to Read

On a particularly nondescript weekend afternoon, Edison must deal with his exasperated mother, who is bearing down on him like a force of nature; the looming deadline of a paper on the philosophical writings of Immanuel Kant; and a persistent, insidious force that aims to destroy the tranquility of his existence.

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”.

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.

It is the time of El Niño, a season ruled by superstition and fear. The rain is long in coming, the ground has cracked up dry. The ricestalks are thin and sickly. Villagers go hungry. And a boy dies from a snakebite. The adults splinter. Some pray. Others join a cult to appease earth spirits and wait for the ada, the ricefield spirit goddess of bountiful harvest who dances naked on moonlit nights and signals the need for a virgin’s sacrifice. There are fence sitters, equally pro-church and pro-cult. A landlord’s steward enforces his master’s usury on hapless farmers. A self-righteous priest says rain must first be deserved. Two young women fight for the right to do with their bodies as they please. A bastard boy and a blind girl come of age. Yesterday, they were children.

Opon + Pasil + Tres + Echavez + Naval + Ormoc + Valencia. It’s Saturday and it’s black.

A erotic drama chronicles the amorous exploits of a winsome young bride. When her affluent but crippled spouse fails to fulfill her physical desires, she seeks sexual satisfaction outside her marriage by taking a lover. Sunshine Cruz delivers a standout performance in a supporting role.

Jerry is a wide-awake tourist guide in Cebu who knows all the angles, and who has supported his divorced mother and younger brother and sister since their musician father deserted the family for a younger woman. Jerry guides tour buses, taking the mostly Japanese tourists boating, golfing and to strip shows. Jerry also acts as a pimp, and even prostitutes himself. As the breadwinner he makes sacrifices for his family but wields control over his siblings and mother in return

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.

When it is time for her to give birth, Andrea, a communist insurgent seeks refuge in the city to her best friend Joyce. When Andrea's husband is reportedly killed, she temporarily leaves her son to their care. But before Andrea could return to her baby, she is arrested by the military. With no news of Andrea's whereabouts and presuming her to have been dead, the childless couple decided to keep the child and bring him to the United States. Upon returning to the country after seven years for a visit, Andrea confronts them and tries to claim his son back.

An ugly ducking attempts to become desirable.

Boses (Voices) is the story of a musician named Ariel who offers violin lessons to a child of the slums. Through the violin, the abused child Onyok is able to get back his voice from a mute, desensitized existence. A violin teacher and his student, a mute 7-year old abused child in a shelter, develop a friendship stemming from their love of music. Ariel discovers the immense talent of Onyok hiding behind a veneer of silence and pain caused by an unhappy and cruel father. In the developing relationship of teacher and student, both characters reveal more of themselves that otherwise may have remained unspoken. They discover each other's strengths and failures through the violin lessons.

LV and her family make their living by operating an illegal off track betting outlet. But things haven't been going well for them lately, and the future is uncertain with Sta. Ana Park closing down.

A local albino is searching for his identity. Believing that he is the son of an American, he tries to learn English through reading translations and definitions from a Tagalog-English dictionary.

The love-hate relationship between mother and son intensifies when the latter decides not to pursue college education in Manila after suffering from separation anxiety.

In death, the ghost of a dutiful housewife learns to move on and discovers a new life in the afterlife.

An itinerant tattoo artist joins a talent reality show for lesbians in the hopes of winning the prize money that will enable her to get artificially inseminated and achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a mother.

A series of mysterious hand-illustrated postcards take a young woman on a journey throughout the Philippines in search of its anonymous writer.