The second part of our Cinemalaya 2023 episode is here! This time we’re putting the focus on the other five films that we and our colleagues from the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers have reviewed! Babala: ang views and opinions ng bawat isa sa episode na ito ay STRICTLY their
Tag: Cinemalaya
Cinemalaya 2023 Round Up! (Part 2)
Cinemalaya 2023 films are in for special screenings across the country through FDCP’s Cinematheques. Check out the schedule for your local cinematheque here. As If It’s TrueSocial media has irrevocably changed the idea of privacy, whether it still exists as we add more and more of ourselves to a curated
QCinema Best Picture “Cleaners” to have UP screenings
Fresh from its win at last year’s QCinema International Film Festival, Cleaners is set to be shown on March at two campuses of the University of the Philippines. The debut film from director Glenn Barit, who has been known in the local film scene for making cinematic works that play with form
Episode 44 – Thop Nazareno (Edward)
Thop Nazareno’s second feature length film, Edward, is debuting in local cinemas this week! We think this is one of Cinemalaya 2019’s best films. For this episode of Third World Cinema Club, Princess and John talk to Thop Nazareno about Edward and also his first feature film Kiko Boksingero. Is
Respeto: The Futility of Resignation
Warning: Full spoilers below. There’s a mislead inherent to Treb Monterras II’s Respeto. By its sheer inclusion of the rap battle subculture — one whose foundation in itself is competition — there’s the immediate perception that it falls under the underdog sports movie genre. But instead of following tropes akin
Baconaua
As dawn starts to creep in the horizon, we see the silhouette of Divina (Elora Españo), with a spear on her hands, standing in a the sea waist-deep. She’s sizing up the water, cautious not to make any unnecessary commotion. But no amount of concentration can make this a day
Kiko Boksingero
Family dramas often have the dire need to verbalize emotions via heavy-handed dramatic confrontations. Thop Nazareno‘s coming-of-age drama Kiko Boksingero spares its audience of this embarrassing rehash and instead sustains a light tone all throughout. The result remains to be a fully-fleshed earnest story efficiently utilizing its modest screen time.
10 Cinemalaya Films You Can Stream Now on iFlix
I’m quite certain there’s such a thing as a “festival hangover”, the frisson that is watching new films buoyed by the steady stream of tweets and reasonably late writings. It happens all the time, with almost all film festivals I’d say. What we have now, though, is the ability to
Must-Reads of the Week: August 9 – August 15
Cinemalaya, Locarno and several tributes on this weeks’ essential reads in World Cinema! … The Guardian’s Ashley Clark looks back about the film ‘Dangerous Minds’ after 20 years from its release: Reviews were generally poor (“stereotypical, predictable and simplified to the point of meaninglessness”, complained the Los Angeles Times; “sentimental and
Pusong Bato
When you are told that the premise of the film you are about to watch revolves around a has-been starlet who falls in love with a rock – yes, that unassuming, solidified piece of merged minerals you find everywhere – you can either cringe at its ridiculousness, or be excited
Papetir
Beneath Papetir‘s exterior of outdated editing and its just basic lack of directorial style, lies glimmers of an interesting premise not fully utilized. Papetir is the story of King (played by real-life puppeteer Ruther Urquia), a children’s party ventriloquist, who during one of his shows gets derailed mid-skit as he confronts his
Sanctissima
Sanctissima is easily the best amongst the the other short films it screened alongside with, as part of Cinemalaya’s Shorts A block. This is not to say that the short is perfect. The film has many good points as it delivers its promise of very Filipino barrio-set horror. Its flaws
Must-reads of the week: July 12 – July 18
‘Clueless’, ‘Wild Tales’, Joshua Oppenheimer and more in this week’s film highlights! … Indiewire’s Carlos Aguilar and his 7 reasons on Roy Andersson’s latest film is a philosophical wonder: Candid and irreverent, Andersson’s philosophical contemplations come from mundane situations and daily tragedies. What’s usually humdrum becomes unexpectedly profound under the
Cinemalaya 2015 announces its ten short features
From more than a hundred entries, the Cinemalaya Foundation selects ten promising entries for the Short Film category of the 2015 Cinemalaya Independent Film Competition. Apasol (Chasing Sun) by Ryanne Murcia Gatilyo ng Baril by Eero Yves Francisco and Glenmark ‘Marky’ Doromal Kyel by Arvin ‘Kadiboy’ Belarmino Lisyun qng Geografia
We Need Votes! Help Make Filipino Horror Film ‘The Disturbed’ Happen!
Tyrone “Ty” Acierto, the acclaimed director of MMFF New Breed-sleeper The Grave Bandits, is trying to make his new horror film The Disturbed happen thru an online film-funding program based in Canada. At the bottom is the 60-minute video pitch for his film idea, following a failed exorcism attempt at a malevolent, territorial evil.
Ang Katiwala
Meant — rather explicitly — as a propaganda for the late President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines Manuel L. Quezon, Aloy Adlawan’s Ang Katiwala (The Caretaker), makes for a convoluted debacle of an assortment of ideas that are never entirely developed. The scripting is weak. It finds an illiterate family
Dagitab
There is not much to do but surrender to Giancarlo Abrahan’s Dagitab (alternatively titled The Sparks), a film that holds captive its audience. It radiates in visual and textual opulence that only the deftest of hands can achieve. One scene in particular makes a perfect summation of the film as a fine work
Nora Aunor on Cinemalaya Posting Films on YouTube: “I think it’s like stealing.”
As predicted, the Awards Night for Philippine independent film festival Cinemalaya was, to sum up in two terms, very awkward. Winning Best Actress for Joel Lamangan’s Hustisya, Nora Aunor expressed her thoughts on the issue of Cinemalaya uploading previous years’ full-length entries to YouTube for free, saying it is tantamount to stealing.
1st Ko Si 3rd
In Real S. Florido’s 1st Ko si 3rd time plays two roles: one that creates a void and another that fills it. The case of Cory, an ageing woman compelled to rekindling an old flame, is curious and endearing, yet touches something deep and true: time is an eternal debt
Previous Cinemalaya Entries ‘Mistakenly’ Uploaded to YouTube
A YouTube account — belonging to one Janssen Agbada, a ‘technical personnel’ of Cinemalaya — had been host to ‘mistakenly’ uploaded videos of full-length, previous entries from the festival since yesterday. The account, in fest’s resolution, has already been taken down, but had made available online for a whole day
Children’s Show
Only a few frames from completely wallowing in its relentless, almost-stifling realism, director Roderick Cabrido’s debut feature Children’s Show swivels to the truly weird and beams us out of the film, where it is most necessary. Knowing when to retreat back a step shows calculation in his film’s ultra-violent madness;
#Y (Hashtag Y)
Gino M. Santos’s follow-up to his exuberant if shrouded debut The Animals is set once again within a circle of upper-class, party-‘till-drop youth (here, a quartet of twenty-somethings) frequenting night bars as if they were their sacred intersections, flush in neon lights and pumped with skittering beats and booming synths. The
Mariquina
Jerrold Tarog’s ingenious work in last year’s Cinemalaya-entry Sana Dati distinguishes him as a man of fine, filmic talent: his film, closing the famed Camera Trilogy (sided with Confessional and Mangatyanan), is about acceptance and closure; yet it goes in all sorts of direction, transforming a simple romantic tale into
K’na, the Dreamweaver
“When Kana, a young T’boli woman, becomes a dreamweaver, she has the chance to weave together her village’s warring clans. But, will she give up true love to do so?”
Asintado
“In the middle of the preparation for Taong Putik Festival, a young man penniless and in love, takes on a drug courier job that goes terribly wrong. To save him, his mother now makes the most difficult decision of her life.”
