Zeus Bascon

At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads an expedition under the Spanish crown in search of the first westward route to the Spice Islands. He embarks on a perilous journey across the uncharted Pacific, where his fleet faces starvation, mutiny, and the psychological toll of endless seas. Upon reaching the shores of Cebu, Magellan is pulled into a fatal conflict with the natives by his drive to spread Catholicism, culminating in his tragic doom.

1617, Las Islas Filipinas. The Spanish friar, Father Enciso, the encomendero of one of the islands, rules with unrelenting toughness and an insatiable libido to tame the savages.

Tuding sets out on a journey to a distant town to track down the man who got her youngest sister pregnant, and she’s not going home without him. A pancit western set in the late-1940s.

Bajingjing, an over-imaginative girl, accidentally swallows a santol seed. Believing that she’ll turn into a santol tree, she then prepares everything for her sick mom before she eventually becomes one.

In this whimsical historical fresco, a counterpoint to today’s urgent political issues, the figure of the Filipino revolutionary Rizal is revisited in the light of early silent films.

A reinvention of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in contemporary Manila as a rock musical.

1901, Balangiga. Eight-year-old Kulas flees town with his grandfather and their carabao to escape General Smith's Kill & Burn order. He finds a toddler amid a sea of corpses and together, the two boys struggle to survive the American occupation.