Movie Review: Memory Channel

Memory Channel is 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.

Movie Review: Iadya Mo Kami

Father Greg, a diocesan priest, is reassigned to a parish up in the mountains. His relationship with a young woman named Carla, has produced a child. He meets the parish priest, Father Alejo, an old friend who is addicted to drinking. During a healing Mass, Father Greg is introduced to the town's powerful couple, Julian and Millett who strike a friendship with the new priest. One night, Father Greg discovers the lifeless body of Julian in the church premises. He embarks on a mission to help solve the crime, a mission which leads him to the discovery of his own personal salvation.

Movie Review: Ringgo The Dog Shooter

This is a story of the journey of  3 souls heading towards healing and redemption. RINGGO (Sandino Martin) is a 16-year old boy who works as a dog-shooter (the one who assists in mating the dogs with breed -- he will see to it that the private parts of the stud and bitch will be locked during the mating and no sperm will be put to waste in the process). 

Ringgo works for BONG, (Janice De Belen) a 40-year old lesbian who is a breeder of dogs. One of Bong’s dogs is Inca, who is a troubled Doberman. Things will get complicated when Ringgo, Inca and Bong developed a relationship as if they were really mother and child, and get entangled in each other’s personal issues and becomes each other’s protector and defender. 

The one that ties the three of them is that invisible umbilical cord... the cord of love and sacrifice.

World Premieres Film Festival 2016 List of Winners

Ringgo, The Dog Shooter - In Competition Filipino New Cinema Section: World Premieres Film Festival Philippines 2016

World Premieres Film Festival Runs From June 29 - July 10 2016

World Premieres Film Festival Filipino New Cinema 2016 Official Entries

Movie Review: EDSA

Three stories, one day in EDSA. An opportunistic entrepreneur, (Hayden Kho), develops a bond with a streetkid (John Manalo), trying to help him get to his business meeting in Makati, after losing his cellphone to a snatcher. A teacher (Sue Prado) from the province haggles with a former OFW, turned taxi driver (Allen Dizon), whether the country should follow world standards in basic education requirements. And a snatcher (Aljur Abrenica) trying to reform himself with the help of a nurse (Kris Bernal) by trying to return what he stole. Three stories all asking the same thing: what matters most, the collective or the individual gain?

Movie Review: Da Dog Show

The Dog Show is the true story of a man engaged in trick shows in the streets of Manila. Sergio is trying to save enough money in order to get back his youngest son from his rebellious wife, who suddenly leaves him for good. He gets a lot of help from his children, especially his 27-year-old daughter Celia, who is inflicted with retardation. Celia misses her mother so much that she spends hours using her manicure set, alone in the bewitching stillness of the night among the abandoned open tombs of the public cemetery where she keeps a closet for her mother’s belongings. Sergio and his family live in a cemetery mausoleum.

Movie Review: Son of Mine

Lei, descendant of an unemployed coal miner, is an aimless man in his fifties, living a hand to mouth existence. When Lei’s son Jeffrey discovers that Lei has a long-drawn debt with Vester, a charismatic crime boss, he does what every loving son would do: He reckons his father’s debt as his own.

Movie Review: Filosofi Kopi

The movie is a tale about soul-searching and making peace with the past through coffee. Ben and Jody are two friends and owners of ‘Filosofi Kopi’, a sophisticated coffee shop known for only serving the best coffee in the country. When a businessman challenges them to make “the perfect cup”, Ben and Jody embark on an adventure that forces them to visit their troubled pasts and re-examine their relationships with their parents. It is a film that not only tells a captivating story, but one that will make us look at coffee with a whole new, passionate perspective.

Movie Review: Not All is Vigil

Antonio and Felisa have been living together their whole life, in a little village of the province of Teruel. Now that their health is more fragile they are afraid of not being able to take care of each other. On the horizon the prospect of having to go into a retirement home appears as a threat. Not All Is Vigil portrays love in old age, tossing-and-turning nights due to the fear of loneliness, death and separation from the beloved. It portrays the fear of leaving one’s life in someone else’s hands and losing independence.

Movie Review: Crimean

KIRIMLI has been adapted from Cengiz Dagci’s first novel “Korkunc Yillar” (Horrible Years), published in 1956. The author who passed away in 2011 has his entire body of work focus on the culture of the Crimean Tatars and the suffering of the Crimean Turks. In the years following the Russian Revolution, Sadik Turan is born in a Crimea where people had hops for better cultural rights and more freedom, but instead, had to face oppression from Russia nationalist politics. During the Stalin era where the oppression is at its peak, Sadik starts school. One morning, he becomes horrified when Red Army soldiers barge into classrooms and declare the mandatory use of the Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Turkish alphabet. And then, he witnesses how they are being robbed of their faith through the demolition of mosques.

Movie Review: World Premieres Film Festival Philippines 2015 Shorts Features

My Verdict For World Premieres Film Festival Philippines: Filipino New Cinema

Here is My Ranking For World Premieres Film Festival Philippines: Filipino New Cinema 2015 Official Entries

                                        1. An Kubo sa Kawayanan

                                        2. I Love You, Thank You

                                        3. Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa

                                        4. Filemon Mamon

                                        5. Maskara

                                        6. Of Sinners and Saints

                                        7. Piring

                                        8. Sino Nga Ba si Pangkoy Ong ?

Best Sound

   

  Best Musical Scoring

Best Theme Song: Sayo - Edgar Allan Guzman

     

Best Editing

 

  Best Production Design

Best Cinematography

Best Story

Best Screenplay

Best Director: Alvin Yapan - An Kubo Sa Kawayanan 

Best Supporting Actor: Prince Stefan - I Love You, Thank You 

Best Supporting Actress: Miles Ocampo - Filemon Mamon

Best Actor: Joross Gamboa - I Love You, Thank You

Best Actress: Mercedes Cabral - An Kubo Sa Kawayanan

Best Picture

Movie Review: Of Sinners and Saints

Leonardo Rossellini is a young Italian priest from Rome.  He is assigned to a parish in Payatas, headed by a courageous Spanish priest.  Payatas is one of the poorest areas of Metro Manila, where all the urban wastes of the metropolis are dumped and processed:  a place where every day children are exposed to violence and dangerous diseases.  Leonardo's mission is to counsel battered women and teach poor children English and catechism.  But soon Leonardo's peace of mind is distraught by the encounter of Merlinda, a young and charming woman he used to love when he was still a seminarian.  Merlinda is now married to Franco, and has a 6 year old son.

Movie Review: Piring

James (Yussef Esteves) is a gym instructor by day and a student by night, who struggles to keep both ends meet.  Stands as the family bread winner, he is determined to make a difference in his troubled family.  He and his three siblings grew up without knowing who their father is, while their mother is a retired prostitute but still runs a whore house.  James works so hard to graduate.   

Movie Review: Filemon Mamon

Filemon Mamon is a high school student who desires two things, to win the heart of the girl he loves and to be the lead in a musical play about his Philippine hero Andres Bonifacio.  But, he has a big problem – his weight.  His out of work father and his OFC mother leave him to adhere to the guidance of his grandmother who loves to cook and who loves to remind him that “to be fat is to be healthy, and to be healthy is to be fat.”

Movie Review: Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa

As clouds begin to roll, we see the morning life of a busy city.  Cars jam the streets, as people makes squares of the side streets they walk on.  People queues in line as everyone wants to board the city train.   This is Sam’s daily picture of his long travel to school. He is a young filmmaker, who in his everyday commune, picks up his girlfriend Isa, in a station, 4 stops away from the school they go in.

Movie Review: I Love You. Thank You.

Paul is a restless twenty-something who cannot get his life together. Worse, he’s been holding on to his love towards Red, his best friend Ivan’s boyfriend. Looking for a sense of direction, he goes to Siem Reap and meets Tang, who falls in love with him.