The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Philippines celebrated World Refugee Day last June 20 by hosting the 4th Refugee Film Festival at the Natividad Fajardo-Rosario Gonzalez Auditorium of De La Salle University (DLSU) Manila. The film festival was aimed at fostering global awareness, building empathy, and mobilizing meaningful action on behalf of the...
Category: Entertainment
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From polarizing themes to meta-style troubleshooting: Revisiting the best films and performances of 2025
Hollywood may have wrapped up its award-giving season in March, but its local counterpart in the Philippines has yet to start rolling out the red carpet for the top achievers of the 2025 film season. The first mainstream group to honor its top picks on July 5 is the entertainment editors’ Eddys, followed thereafter by...
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Lessons Oscar winner Melissa Leo wants to impart to young Filipino actors
It was an opportunity every actor worth his salt couldn’t pass up. Last week, from May 6 to 10, 22 lucky young performers from ABS-CBN’s Star Magic, GMA Network’s Sparkle Artist Center, TV5’s Star Worx and Aktor PH were chosen by a selection committee to take part in an intensive workshop titled “Acting for the...
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Berlinale film shines a light on the plight of undocumented Filipino migrant workers
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, Al Jazeera reported on the plight of thousands of undocumented Filipino migrant workers in Switzerland. Because of their illegal status, it wasn’t very hard to exploit them. They were paid very little for services rendered and charged exorbitant fees to manage the high cost of living in...
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‘Sisa’: On madness and other forms of resistance
Because of the many scars of our past, any retelling of Philippine history is bound to carry a certain lugubriousness for those who are heirs to this history. Sisa, directed by Jun Robles Lana, is no exception. This was especially true for me as I watched the film just a day after the passing of...
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‘UnMarry,’ ‘Manila’s Finest’ boost MMFF 2025’s auspicious lineup
The 50th edition of the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) last year featured entries that had Vice Ganda (“And the Breadwinner Is…”) and Vic Sotto (“The Kingdom”) bringing their A-game to the holiday projects they chose to champion. This year’s eight-title lineup is even more auspicious, with the annual cinematic feast fielding entries that are...
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A million Sunshines
We watch movies to be entertained and inspired, but film can also serve as a powerful medium for illuminating inconvenient truths and bringing to cinematic light the lived experiences of people, especially the marginalized. It takes courage to tell these stories, for they may not fare well at the box office, win favor with awards...
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‘Quezon’ and the politics of memory: How cinema rewrites history
There’s something unsettling about how “Quezon” forces us to look again at a man we thought we knew. The film doesn’t simply replay a chapter of history—it rebuilds it. And that’s where the argument begins: depiction, not duplication. Cinema is not a mirror of the past but a creative act of cultural production, one that...
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Art imitates life in Cinemalaya 2025’s hard-hitting indies
By putting a premium on thematic pertinence over pomp, formula and pageantry, the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival has continually asserted its place as the country’s preeminent indie showcase since 2005. It explores stories that are deemed too risky for mainstream audiences and espouses perspectives that champion the weak, oppressed and marginalized. These indies operate...
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Hiligaynon short film ‘Hasang’: A surreal, indigenous view of global warming
ILOILO CITY – The art of filmmaking goes beyond mere entertainment. Creativity fuels passion, but it also allows the filmmaker to express the truth about the society that the viewers are a part of. For 24-year-old Daniel dela Cruz, the director of the award-winning short film “Hasang (Gills),” this meant going back to the roots...