Room in a Crowd

Sarah is a debt collector who lives among the inhabitants of the village of Guimbal on the island of Panay. She wants to find the young man who appeared to her in a dream and goes to the island of Negros. Here, as she interacts with the inhabitants, Sarah continues her search, gathering memories of life and war, dreams, myths, legends, songs and stories that she takes part in and at times revolve around her. She is the daughter of an ancient mermaid, a revolutionary, a primordial element, a virgin who was kidnapped and hidden away from the sunlight. “The film is a retelling of fragments of the American occupation. Dialogue, shot in the Hiligaynon language, is not translated but used as a tonal guide and a tool for narration. Using unscripted scenes shot where the main character was asked to merely interact with the villagers, I discard dialogue and draw meaning from peoples’ faces, voices, and actions, weaving an entirely different story through the use of subtitles and inter-titles.”

After a popular teen falls to her death, her best friend basks in the glow of the social media attention, while their rival seeks to avenge the past and uncover the truth behind the mysterious death.

A small town in the Philippines is turned upside down by the arrival of a film crew that has everyone excited. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Lukas finds his own world overturned when he is told that his father is a tikbalang (half horse, half man). His father’s disappearance leaves Lukas to try to unravel the mystery of his own heritage and his own nature.

An examination of poverty and violence and the influence it has on two boys who live in a slum.

A family moves into a secluded mansion where they soon find themselves being targeted by an entity taking the form of a giant spider.

Eight year-old Yael, shy to a fault, lives in her own private world. One day she finds out about a pen that can "translate" the thoughts and feelings of nervous people.

A news team investigating rumors of aswang killings in a remote barrio are attacked by a group of soldiers, forcing them to run for their lives in the deeps of the forest, where more mystery and danger lay in wait.

The unfinished movie of the late Celso Ad Castillo now a Cinema One Originals documentary film.

A grieving detective finds himself increasingly ensnared while investigating a case involving a sinister navigation app causing physical and psychological debris.

A touching ode to Leonardo de la Cruz, the filmmaker's late father, who died earlier this year of lung cancer at the age of 65, the film is a personal meditation of sorts. It is at once dark, yet not unrelieved by poetry on the mysteries of life, existence and mortality.

A half-black half-Filipino Michael Jordan wanna-be sets his way towards his “hoop dreams.”

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.

BIG BOY is a coming-of-age tale about a boy and his family in 1950s Mindoro, Philippines, and how he is groomed into becoming the poster boy for his parent's home-based business. The film is an experimental portrait of a family amidst change -- an experience that will engage audiences in something strange but familiar.

Film students Queenie, Izzie, and Angie encounter a masked man named Masculado who threatens to distort every film there is into his vision of queer cinema—one that only features masc-for-masc BLs. Using their powers, the trio must stop Masculado before he distorts cinema for good!

In Age of Blight, 12 Asian filmmakers capture and imagine life under the pandemic, from the hospital corridors of Marawi to protest rallies in the streets of Bangkok. The film mirrors light amidst the chaos and darkness, life in the face of death. Participating filmmakers are Mervine Aquino (Philippines), Bagane Fiola (Philippines), Daniel Rudi Haryanto (Indonesia), Hassanodden Hashim (Philippines), Gladys Ng (Singapore), Nontawat Numbenchapol (Thailand), Carla Pulido Ocampo (Philippines), Edmund Telmo (Philippines), Mark Lester Valle (Philippines), Ligaya Villablanca (Philippines), Takayuki Yoshida (Japan), and Abdul Zainidi (Brunei). Edited and assembled by John Torres (Philippines).

Black-and-white sequence of contemporary urban life, jittery images recorded by a 1940s motion-picture camera, and a sleepy narration of words, written by Filipino poet and singer Lourd De Veyra.