A young woman found unconscious in a city street claims to be another
person who was brutally murdered two months earlier. She escapes from
the psychiatric hospital in which she’s confined to prove her identity
and find out the truth about her life, death, and murderer.
My Verdict: 4/5
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.
My Verdict: 4/5
Presented in Glorious Cinema – O – ke! A feminist
documentarian, a pickup artist, and a virgin’s lives collide. Aries
Santos is a Fil-Aus feminist documentarian who is struggling to complete
her new film. Her subjects are the male members of ‘©TRU MALE
DYNAMICS’, a company formed to teach men how to seduce women. Meanwhile,
a sex worker named Melody slays into the night. The line between
reality and fiction blurs, and blood is shed on the neon-lit streets of
Melbourne.
My Verdict: 3/5
Abner (Mon Confiado) lives a drab, downcast, solitary existence. His
wife has abandoned him for good. Working for pest control company
Panther, his job remains his sole connection to the outside world. It
seems going nowhere until he meets Viola (Jean Judith Javier), a client
who is existence is as sad as his. Wife of a vain college teacher Dodie (Alvin Anson), Viola is a trapped bird. And meeting Abner seems to give
her a chance to fly free. The house, infested with rats all around,
becomes a powder keg of emotions and danger as sexual tension between
Abner and Viola turns to illicit affair, all happening under Dodie’s
nose. In order to extend their relationship, Abner devices something
that will eventually lead to a tragedy that will change their lives
forever.
My Verdict: 3/5
Tale of the Lost Boys is the story of the
friendship between two men — Alex (Oliver Aquino), a Filipino mechanic,
and Jerry (Ta Su), a Taiwanese aborigine student. The two meet randomly
when Alex flees to Taipei from Manila, upon learning that his girlfriend
is pregnant. A casual conversation develops into a surprising personal
connection between them. Both realize that they yearn for a more
intimate connection with their mothers, since Alex’s abandoned him for a
new family while Jerry is afraid that his traditional parents will
reject him for being gay. The two men go on a road trip and end up at
Jerry’s tribe. The trip eventually makes them reconnect with their
mothers and both discover a certain sense of identity and freedom.
My Verdict: 3.5/5
Short Films
A film about a man, who’s plainly surviving his extinguished married
life for companionship. They have simply stopped communicating. Cesar
tries to bring back the spark of their relationship by mimicking an
ideal woman. He is yet to discover the uncertainty of how his wife,
Magda, would absorb the transformation.
My Verdict: 3.5/5
Three decades. That’s how long Marga practically dictated the fate of
her country. She was the PR mastermind behind tumultuous events that
rocked national stability like rallies and coups. She engineered the
honors the brought pride to her fellowmen. She pulled the strings that
dragged the economy down. A social firestarter. A political puppeteer. A
morality spin doctor. For the agenda of the people in power and for her
personal gain. But the fires she started are growing. The people she
puppeted are out to get her. And her life is spinning beyond her
control. Can she still mastermind the mess she has created?
My Verdict: 4/5
This is a story of a two people Tisoy and Kulot who are hooked up in
using illegal drugs until one session causes frightening hallucinations
My Verdict: 2.5/5
A local radio station named Kalye FM, hosted by DJ “Papa Marco”,
received a phone call from a random caller who introduced as “Toto”
which narrates his sad story about how his live-in partner left him. As
the conversation goes by, Toto wasn’t able to control his emotions and
broke down in tears. Papa Marco understood that he needed some comfort
to ease the pain. Little did He know that Toto was hiding a bigger
sorrow and guilt behind those tears.
My Verdict: 2.5/5
Pompoms takes us to the glorious days of Pagsanjan, Laguna. Through
the eyes of Lando, an unfortunate victim of pedophilia. At a very young
age, the poor boy had to break away from innocence to be his family’s
provider. His mother, Filomena, only wanted to lift their lives from the
dusk, and through the needs of Tommy, an Australian tourist, she met
answers. Lando had been chained to a trapped pact, and there is no way
out.
My Verdict: 3/5
While working far from home to make ends meet, Boyet is called back to
his family in rural Philippines after his young daughter Abby goes
missing. His distraught wife, Tata, believes their child was taken by
the duwende, a mythical creature from Filipino folklore that steals
children from their homes. Boyet investigates and discovers that the
truth is much harder to bear.
My Verdict: 3/5
Documentaries
The full-length documentary film is about Simone Rota, an Italian
footballer with Filipino roots currently in the football national team
popularly known as the Azkals – the Philippine Men’s National Football
Team. He is also playing with a Philippine professional football team –
the Davao Aguilas FC. The idea is to show the life of Simone, his
journey from the time he was adopted in an orphanage in the Philippines
and raised in Italy and playing for an Italian professional football
club and then coming back to the Philippines after thirty years to play
football for the national team. His main reason for playing football in
the Philippines is to search for his biological mother. Simone, upon his
return to the Philippines, chose to live in the orphanage who cared for
him when he was a baby and gives back to the orphanage his time and
resources. The documentary will show how football has changed his life
and how the same sport led him back to his birthplace and hopefully find
his mother.
My Verdict: 4/5
Am-Amma (Heirloom) focuses on Norma Agaid-Mina, a weaver of
Tingguian textiles from Penarrubia, Abra all her life. This documentary
holds ups to the light, the expressive fibers of Tingguian culture, as
well as strength and resilience of the weavers who make this into a
tapestry of life.
My Verdict: 3/5
This documentary focuses on two dogs whose roles with their respective owners’ lives transcend being “man’s best friends”
My Verdict: 2.5/5
(Mahal, 2017) is an auto-ethnographic experimental documentary composed of shot and donated footages about a millennial ilustrado
and her life as a scholar from the ‘Third World’ being confronted with
‘First World’ experiences. It tackles issues of identity, displacement,
the spectre of comparison, 2nd class citizenship, nationality
and the privileged position of belonging in the academe, all disguised
in the everyday struggles of sustaining a long distance relationship.
Seen from the point of view of the one who writes to a lover left
behind, (Mahal, 2017) serves as a reference to the daily battles of a
scholar who is burdened with the choice of reconciling the need to find
solutions to the social problems of her country and the desire to live a
reactionary life with the person she loves.
My Verdict: 3/5
Tsuper is about the life story of a taxi driver, tatay Roderic Almeda
who sells peanut butter inside his cab. His sick son and wife is his
inspiration in working very hard. This documentary strengthen the saying
that Filipinos are really hardworking and willing to do anything to
have enough income for their family. Not just one but two work and duty
at the same time. Problems are always present in our life but let’s see
how tatay Roderic will face these conflicts.
My Verdict: 2.5/5
Voltaire Velasco Perez, 56 years old, is known as a Dry Leaf Painting
Artist from t he Philippines in t he global field of painting. Take a
peek into his history and witness to the journey and struggles of a
simple painter towards becoming a master of the arts.
My Verdict: 4/5
Best Short Film: Firestarter
Best Documentary: Journeyman Finds Home: The Simone Rota Story
Best Production Design: El Peste
Best Cinematography: Abomination
Best Screenplay: Bomba
Best Director: Ralston Jover - Bomba
Best Actor: Allen Dizon - Bomba
Best Actress: Angeli Nicole Sanoy - Bomba
Best Picture: Bomba
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