Lukas the Strange

Refrains Happen Like Revolutions in a Song

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.”

Room in a Crowd

Rooted in Filipino realities – both concrete and cinematically reimagined – John Torres’ meticulous yet generous approach is a synthesis of the personal and the political. Assembling fragments of discordant images and murmuring voices, this inventive parable creates a present that appears alien and a future that feels familiar.

The Rachels

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.

Sewer

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

Todo Todo Teros

Basically an artist is also a terrorist, the protagonist thinks in an unguarded moment. And if he is a terrorist after all, then he might just as well be one. Not an instant product, but an experimental feature in which diary material is brought together to form an intriguing puzzle.

Itsy Bitsy

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

Nervous Translation

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.

Salvage

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.

We Still Have to Close Our Eyes

John Torres repurposes documentary footage captured from the sets of various Filipino productions (including the likes of Lav Diaz and Erik Matti) into an eerie, elliptical sci-fi narrative about human avatars controlled by apps.

People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose

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

Dog Days

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

Shotgun Tuding

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

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.

Breather

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.

Tomorrow, To Feel

In late 2040s Manila, Wax and Phil’s dying relationship is shaken by a family member's transient arrival. As they accommodate this estrangement, they find a final push to retrace an old desire—to feel.

Silent Film

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.