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...
Category: Entertainment
Post
‘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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
Storytelling, design, and government initiatives: How are the Korean and Philippine film industries different?
South Korea’s film industry seems to be doing well looking in from the outside. According to data from the Korean Film Council (Kofic) on 2024 local box office hits, “Exhuma” was No. 1 with a total gross of $82,686,501 (11,914,785 tickets sold); “The Round-up: Punishment” was No. 2 with a total gross of $82,674,629 (11,...
Post
Joey Reyes on PH’s Oscar chances, restoring film classics, and corruption in gov’t
We had high hopes for the beleaguered local film industry after the Metro Manila Film Festival’s (MMFF) sumptuous cinematic buffet last December and the CinePanalo competition in March. But in the five months that followed the MMFF, big-screen duds (like “Ex Ex Lovers,” “Everything About My Wife”) quickly outnumbered small cinematic gems like Derick Cabrido’s...
Post
Lav Diaz’s ‘Magellan’ is the Philippines’ official entry to the Oscars
First, there were seven—all well-made films of different genres and themes reflective of Philippine realities. But only one could be chosen as the Philippines’ official entry to the Best International Feature Film category of the Oscar Awards. The verdict: “Magellan,” a film by Lav Diaz starring the Mexican actor Gael García Bernal and which premiered at...
Post
In search of the missing and to disrupt the status quo, one film at a time
“On April 28, 2007, 36-year-old Jonas Burgos was having lunch in a mall in Quezon City when six armed men and a woman, who identified themselves as police, forcibly took him, dragging him like a pig and forcing him into a vehicle. As he was being abducted, witnesses reported him shouting, ‘Aktibista lang po ako...
Post
To go or stay: The life-and-death quandary of Filipino healthcare workers
“Stay,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last week, addressing healthcare workers at an event in Leyte where the government turned over patient-transport vehicles. His remark was an acknowledgment of the great number of healthcare workers seeking employment abroad. A similar point was raised in the recently staged play “Nobody Is Home” by the Philippine Educational...
Post
‘Side Show: The Musical’ presents a glimpse of the ‘abnormal’ and society’s pitiless gaze
Freaks, weirdos and oddities are on center stage at The Sandbox Collective’s “Side Show: The Musical,” which takes audiences to a time when one had to catch a travelling circus to revel in the unusual. But beyond the spectacle, it’s a show that raises many questions: Why do we focus on what’s “abnormal” in others?...