Directing

Martika Ramirez Escobar

Martika Ramirez Escobar is a filmmaker-cinematographer based in Manila. Most of her works are reflections on her relationship with cinema. After she graduated with honors from the University of the Philippines, her thesis film competed at the 19th Busan International Film Festival. She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents Tokyo, Asian Film Academy, and is a recipient of the Purin Pictures Film Fund.

Known For

Processions

Processions · 2017

The news of Patricia’s sudden death disrupts the lives of her friends. After several years apart, they have to meet back together to pay their last respects to their dearly departed.

Status: Rejected

Status: Rejected · 2026

Status: Rejected

MovieDramaComedy

Longing for love and the promise of a better life, a grandmother finds herself swept into an unexpected online romance that challenges her sense of worth, family, and the dreams she refuses to let go of.

Tisoy

MovieDramaRomance

A university student learns that it is not so easy to borrow a library book. Martika Ramirez Escobar and Sari Estrada's segment in the anthology "Anatomiya ng Pag-Ibig."

Open Endings

Open Endings · 2026

MovieDramaComedy

Four queer women in their 30s who are exes-turned-best-friends navigate adulthood, love, friendship, chosen families, and everything in between.

Alaga

Gloria, a middle-aged seamstress, and her son Bayani live in the House, a structure in constant decay. As Bayani’s birthday approaches, mother, son, and the House are forced to confront their innermost desires.

Quadrilaterals

Quadrilaterals · 2017

MovieDocumentaryFamily

A portrait of a family of Overseas Filipino Workers seen through the objects in their home.

Extra Festive

Extra Festive · 2024

A middle-aged gay couple resign themselves to a cheap motel in the midst of Manila's Christmas nighttime rush. Later, a lost present is found in the hands of a younger, mysterious stranger.

Living Things

Living Things · 2020

Kints and Charles have been together for almost a decade. One day, Kints wakes up and discovers that her lover has changed, literally. Although troubled at first, she eventually understands that what happened is a natural phenomenon. Through this, she is reminded that people change all the time and love can change people.

Filmography

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Processions

Processions · 2017

The news of Patricia’s sudden death disrupts the lives of her friends. After several years apart, they have to meet back together to pay their last respects to their dearly departed.

Director of Photography

Status: Rejected

Status: Rejected · 2026

Status: Rejected

MovieDramaComedy

Longing for love and the promise of a better life, a grandmother finds herself swept into an unexpected online romance that challenges her sense of worth, family, and the dreams she refuses to let go of.

Director of Photography

Tisoy

MovieDramaRomance

A university student learns that it is not so easy to borrow a library book. Martika Ramirez Escobar and Sari Estrada's segment in the anthology "Anatomiya ng Pag-Ibig."

Director of Photography

Open Endings

Open Endings · 2026

MovieDramaComedy

Four queer women in their 30s who are exes-turned-best-friends navigate adulthood, love, friendship, chosen families, and everything in between.

Director of Photography

Alaga

Gloria, a middle-aged seamstress, and her son Bayani live in the House, a structure in constant decay. As Bayani’s birthday approaches, mother, son, and the House are forced to confront their innermost desires.

Director of Photography

Quadrilaterals

Quadrilaterals · 2017

MovieDocumentaryFamily

A portrait of a family of Overseas Filipino Workers seen through the objects in their home.

Writer

Extra Festive

Extra Festive · 2024

A middle-aged gay couple resign themselves to a cheap motel in the midst of Manila's Christmas nighttime rush. Later, a lost present is found in the hands of a younger, mysterious stranger.

Director of Photography

Living Things

Living Things · 2020

Kints and Charles have been together for almost a decade. One day, Kints wakes up and discovers that her lover has changed, literally. Although troubled at first, she eventually understands that what happened is a natural phenomenon. Through this, she is reminded that people change all the time and love can change people.

Writer

Henry

MovieDramaRomance

Teenager Henry begins longing for another life when he visits a mansion's construction site to seek compensation for his older brother's work injury.

Cinematography

Yelo

In the cramped heat of a thrift shop in Cubao, the air is thick with the unspoken desires of Jessa and Candy. But when a foreigner arrives with the promise of America, their lives are led astray.

Director of Photography

Where is the Lie?

Where is the Lie? · 2023

Where is the Lie?

When a hopeless romantic transwoman matches with a seemingly perfect guy on a dating app, her chance at love takes a dark turn when he ghosts her, unraveling an intricate web of deceit, lies, and catfishing orchestrated by a sociopathic mastermind.

Second Unit Director

Stone Heart

Stone Heart · 2014

MovieComedyRomance

“Pusong Bato” (Stone Heart) is about Cinta Dela Cruz, a middle-aged faded actress who tries to relive and remember her glorious days as a movie star in the 1970s. She does this by watching films at home everyday until one day, during an earthquake; something breaks into her window and wakes her up from her Hollywood dream.

Director

Dindo

Film Dindo, the son of a film editor in the 1970s, revisits the old workspace of his father and finds himself talking with the characters of a film.

Director

Leonor Will Never Die

Leonor Will Never Die · 2022

Leonor Will Never Die

MovieFantasyComedy

Fiction and reality blur when Leonor, a retired filmmaker, falls into a coma after a television lands on her head, compelling her to become the action hero of her unfinished screenplay.

Executive Producer

The Tigers of Infanta

The Tigers of Infanta · 2022

The Tigers of Infanta

MovieDramaMystery

Director of Photography

Hando

A writer narrates the moral conundrums of the times.

Director

Children of the Valley

Children of the Valley · 2026

Children of the Valley

After his father voluntarily surrenders to Oplan Tokhang, a newly orphaned prepubescent boy tries to befriend a young, enigmatic shoemaker, forming a transient connection in a decaying shoe factory confronted by its looming shutdown.

Co-Producer

When This Is All Over

When This Is All Over · 2023

When This Is All Over

When a rich kid slacker meets a working class breadwinner, the two form an unlikely friendship in spite of their differences. With the pandemic and society bearing down on them, they fight back by throwing the biggest illegal rave the lockdown has ever seen.

Director of Photography

Love in the Ungodly Hour

Love in the Ungodly Hour · 2021

Love in the Ungodly Hour

A love story between two young men, separated after one of them contracted a highly stigmatized disease. Years later, the guy who abandoned his former lover due to that illness comes back in need of love and acceptance, which he failed to provide in their relationship before.

Director of Photography

Daughters of the Sea

Daughters of the Sea

Daughters of the Sea

Martika Escobar's second feature film will deal with three Filipino sea legends, exploring the various types of paper maps, the sea, and the existence of time.

Writer

Hey, Hey, Take Care!

Hey, Hey, Take Care! · 2025

Hey, Hey, Take Care!

MovieDramaComedy

Grief-striken in urban poor’s hell, a child eager for viral fame and his beautiful, terminal-ill brother embark on a rescue mission to take back a beloved family jeepney in order to survive.

Director of Photography

Puppy Love

Puppy Love · 2017

MovieDramaFantasy

A young girl on the brink of puberty wakes up one morning to find that her pet dog had escaped, leaving her with a wound in her vagina.

Cinematography

Arrows

A short film written and directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar.

Writer

Songs Happen Like Refrains in a Revolution

Songs Happen Like Refrains in a Revolution · 2021

Songs Happen Like Refrains in a Revolution

MovieDocumentaryMusic

A woman tries to write a song. She looks for the right words and melody in places and through people. Through a hand-drawn map from a woman thrice her age, she finds people who have found what she is looking for. They tell her about how they found them. She listens, then she sings. We hear not a song, but a cry for a sing-along.

Director