The New Faces of Dreams and Mysteries

A tribute to the people that we fear to lose, and for the ones that we have lost. It is a story about the fear that we have to face as the new normal.

The night before the lockdown, while reviewing some unused footages from my latest film project (Hinulid), a small box from an anonymous sender arrives. The box contains a Bikol translation of the Tagalog long poem, Ibong Adarna, and an egg.

The amazing adventures of Gunam-gunam (Rumi) and Guni-guni (Phantasm). Adapted from the book Auxiliary Materials for Teaching the Filipino Language by Kelly Sta. Ana Nicolas (Philippine Normal College, 1964).

In a period beset by a plague, the visionary’s portal to his soul has been thwarted by the four corners of his abode. With imagination as the only detour, the drifting of thoughts is inevitable. Amidst the overcast, the curtain opens to the apparent truth – truth that no frame can impede a visionary.

It’s December 2020, more than nine months of community quarantine in the Philippines. The idea of nothingness is actual and symbolic. With imposed restrictions in the physical world, how can we tell our personal and collective stories of living under the “longest COVID-19 lockdown in the world”? Confined at home, physical and non-physical boundaries are magnified as the filmmaker attempts to articulate existence through floating in time and space.

In times of necessary physical distancing, ten couples from the filmmaker’s hometown allow the cameras into their homes not to disturb but capture any delicate exchange.

A filmmaker’s reflection about his life during the pandemic, as "the flames are climbing up the wall."

A woman with falling hair, anxious about her online work, a child unable to leave her room in a power outage, and a yoga buff with body issues, all encounter an unseen terror while alone in their urban middle-class homes during the nationwide quarantine.

In transit, Carlo reminisces the blissful memories of his beloved mother, Joy, who died a few months ago while the country was in lockdown facing a worldwide pandemic. As he returns to his hometown Pampanga to reunite with his family, he will be facing a first birthday without his mother.

Filming in a Time of Uncertainty is a short documentary film that follows a small team of filmmakers, who are based in the region in Mindanao, as they struggle to shoot a film amidst the trying times of the pandemic. And how they were able to comply with the community's minimum health guidelines, while observing the basic health care, in spite of the intricacies of the film industry’s standard health protocols.

A Manobo tribe flees from fear only to find themselves in another dreadful situation: a lockdown due to the pandemic.

A young entrepreneur meets a group of coffee farmers and finds the inspiration to continue despite the pandemic.

As the global pandemic affects more than half the world, the Family Chan tries to cope with the seemingly permanent quarantine and the claustrophobic circumstance of being together.

ARGILEUX

Vicky's ex-husband, John, invites her on a trip to communist Prague. First John disappears, then her passport. Vicky finds herself alone and penniless in Prague and becomes a tragic pawn caught in a web of espionage and murder.

Following the death of her father, Amanda seeks out her long estranged mother, who at their first meeting confesses to having killed two men in retribution to the assassination of her sister, the popular writer K.Penza back in 1986. Before she knows it, Amanda finds herself drawn into the incumbent darkness that has marred her family history as she tries to come to terms with the scars of the past.

En leid ons niet in bekoring

Olga discovers the unfinished diary of a notorious killer and becomes captivated by its dark secrets. As she delves deeper, she uncovers a mysterious connection between them, putting her life—and the lives of those around her—in grave danger.

Bianca is 23 years old, and it already feels like too much. She has left her parents' home and is supposed to attend university, but she never goes. She has a few specific obsessions: the passing of time, cocaine, and Angelica. Since they started living together, everything seems to move faster, spiraling downwards. Even their friendship stumbles into addiction and becomes confused with love. Bianca keeps a notebook, jotting down notes for her books. Still, she wishes she could write everything in it: that youth is painful and already slipping away, that friendship breaks your heart, and that we constantly lose everything — and yet, maybe, in the end — between the night streets of Rome, the boys of Naples, and the tree that stands silently, visible through the window — nothing will be truly lost.