Arleen Cuevas

Elevator

Trapped inside the elevator of a hotel casino complex, a lowly elevator boy falls in love with his investor's mistress that forces him to choose between his love for her, or his dreams for a better future.

Nanahimik ang Gabi

The film revolves around the covert relationship of a woman with a corrupt police officer and "sugar daddy."

How to Disappear Completely

A young girl from the countryside dreams of disappearing. She plays a lonely game of hide-and-seek while her mother quotes the Bible and her father relishes in alcohol and history. She decides to put on a stage play based on an old Filipino film about a family who disappears in the mountains during the war. But soon after the performance, she vanishes from the car, prompting her parents to look for her in the woods. One by one, they all start to disappear.

Porno

An assassin, a porn dubber and a transgender. Three souls. One explicit illusion. To find the ultimate joy in their empty lives. A safe haven, where passion and love mean humanity, ecstasy means enlightenment; and the soul is the ultimate arbiter of the truth.

Amigo

Rafael is a village mayor caught in the murderous crossfire of the Philippine-American War. When U.S. troops occupy his village, Rafael comes under pressure from a tough-as-nails officer to help the Americans in their hunt for Filipino guerilla fighters. But Rafael's brother is the head of the local guerillas, and considers anyone who cooperates with the Americans to be a traitor. Rafael quickly finds himself forced to make the impossible, potentially deadly decisions faced by ordinary civilians in an occupied country.

Boxing in the Philippine Islands

Raya Martin loves old silent films and knows better than anyone how to use old moods and techniques in his own films. You could say that he loves experimental films and that he manages to revitalise the old techniques. Here he looks at boxers, even though we hardly see them.

Independencia

Early 20th century Philippines. The sounds of war signal the arrival of the Americans. A mother and son flee to the mountains, hoping for a quiet life. One day, the son discovers a wounded woman in the middle of the forest, and decides to bring her home.

Aurora

"The social worker Aurora is kidnapped by a group of Moslem rebels who have lost their ideals and only plunder. In a military attack on the camp where Aurora is being held, she manages to escape. But in the jungle, she doesn't have a hope and two attackers find her the same night. Her name means 'first light of day', but it's not at all certain that Aurora will make it that far." - IFFR

Next Attraction

Purports to document the production of a short about a young man’s first sexual experience while doubling as a coming-out film and a multiply layered making-of movie.

Adela

Adela, a former radio personality, celebrates her 80th birthday. Alone, and without support, she longs for the family and stability of years gone by. Mundane events take on heightened meaning as Adela gauges her life against those of the sea of humanity. Adela is about the quiet moments in life that can fill us with either joy or sorrow.

Now Showing

Rita is named after a famous American movie star whom her late, former actress grandmother once adored. She lives in one of Manila’s oldest districts with her busy mother and entrepreneurial aunt. Years later, she is still the same girl enamoured with television, now also tending to her aunt’s stall selling pirated DVD movies. Elsewhere, there survives footages of a movie done before the war.

Daybreak

A married man is having an affair with another man. After some time apart, the two men spend a night together in a family vacation home in Tagaytay, Cavite. Together in such close quarters, the two are left with nothing to do but to confront the realities of their relationship.

Possible Lovers

A one-sided romance, from the gazer (JK Anicoche) and the subject of his gaze (Abner Delina), a sleeping man wearing a coat and a top hat.

A Short Film About the Indio Nacional

What follows is a black-and-white silent film set in the 1890s during the brewing Filipino revolution against Spanish colonialism. A series of tragic and comic sequences tells the Three Ages of an Indio (“common man”) as he progresses from boy bell ringer in a village church to teenage revolutionary to adult theater actor rehearsing a popular Spanish play.