Brownout Capital

In Angeles City, we get inside the lives of two women: a mother who’s a former sex worker and her half-German teenage daughter, as they make small everyday choices to improve their conditions while remaining close to the Red Light. A film that intimately observes how women make choices when their options are few and far between.

Despite contentions from historians, legend has it that in ancient times, an Ati chieftain traded their land to Bornean datus for a necklace and a wide-brimmed hat made of gold. The mountains were left to the Atis, while the plains and rivers went to the Malays. Today, even the mountains are under threat, sometimes violently taken from the Atis.

When the local government threatens to evict her from her own land, a farmer renounces her Filipino citizenship and builds her own micronation.

After discovering she was adopted, daughter explores her biological father's hometown, hoping to uncover a life she was not aware of.