QCinema 2018 grantees revealed

This 2018, the QCinema International Film Festival (QCinema) carries on with its mission to feature the best of new and seasoned homegrown storytellers.

Set to premiere at the film festival are new independent feature and documentary films whose narratives speak about the intricacies of life, love, and history.

QCinema will run from October 21 to 30, 2018 in different cinemas.

Circle Competition

Samantha Lee’s “Billie and Emma” looks into the depths of a young female friendship. Billie is a 17-year-old rocker girl who is forced to move to the province. She meets Emma, the queen bee, model student, and perfect daughter, who suddenly gets pregnant. Together, they go through the experience of first love and they explore what it means to be a family.

“DOG DAYS: Pinoy Hoop Dreams” by Timmy Harn shows half-black half-Filipino wannabe basketball star Michael Jordan Ulili chase his hoop dreams. The rookie player believes he has special God-given powers to have what it takes. But his power takes him on a journey where he is faced with the weirdness of his destiny.

In Dan Villegas’ “Hintayan ng Langit,” a woman in limbo comes to grips with her past. Lisang has been waiting for two years, but her bad behavior has kept her from moving forward. A new list of eligibles will soon be released and her name is finally being considered, but there's a shortage of rooms in purgatory and she would have to share a room with a man from her past.

In “Masla A Papanok,” Gutierrez Mangansakan II goes back to 1892 when a giant bird mysteriously appears in Maguindanao foretelling the fall and rise of colonial empires.

Set in the idyllic city of Naga in the Bicol region, Jordan Dela Cruz’s “Panata sa Bundok Gulsuk” explores a dark coming-of-age story. A naive teenage boy journeys towards the peak of the mythical Mount Gulsuk to search for a cure for the mysterious, incurable disease that afflicted his pregnant high school girlfriend.

Giancarlo Abrahan’s “Sila-Sila” follows the story of a gay man, who, while at a high school reunion, tries to avoid confrontations with people from his past, especially his drunk ex-boyfriend. And so he escapes through his gay-dating app, meeting "strangers" in the vaguely familiar campus.

DocQC entries

In “All Grown Up,” Wena Sanchez tells a story about what it means to help the people you love the most. After years of nurturing and protecting her younger brother, a filmmaker is forced to question her ability to help the people she loves when her own daughter begins to have troubles of her own. 

Hiyas Baldemor Bagabaldo’s “Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala” shows the journey of a third-generation mastercarver in transforming blocks of wood into a gigantic Jesus crucified on a 12 feet cross. This life passage is juxtaposed to a procession of images including that of a 500-year-old Dead Christ. The contrasting harmony of the sculptors, the sculptures, and the devotees reveal a customary yet surreal portrait of Paete, a small artisanal town in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, Shallah Montero looks into the Philippine drug war through the eyes of women in her documentary film, “LUZVIMINDA.”