Refrain (2024)

Air Force

The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.

The Family That Doesn't Weep

Only the famous family that doesn't weep can help reunite a desperate woman with her own.

From What Is Before

The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad, and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081, putting the entire country under Martial Law.

Bar Boys

The misadventures of three young men who try their luck in the college of law. As their friendship, families, relationships and convictions are brought to breaking point, they must keep their heads and emotions together as they prepare for the big day.

Pastor

Pastor Luis Aguila and his family are seemingly tested with their faith. Luis is an ex-convinct who is now the head of his church. Mildred, his wife, tries to hide her secret as she grapples between her family and church duties. Their youngest son Carlo wrestles with growing up and tying up his family together. All of them try to overcome these obstacles but things intensify when Pastor Aguila's daughter, Katrina defies her family when she falls in love with the mysterious Jigo.

Kiko, the Boxer

Kiko, an 11-year-old boy left aimlessly alone with his nanny after the recent death of his mother, rekindles a long lost relationship with his father in an attempt to find a new lease on life.

Respect

Hendrix dreams of hip-hop greatness, but he’s spiraling down a rabbit-hole of crime and poverty until he meets Doc, an old poet still haunted by his martial law past. Can they turn each other’s lives around before they’re swallowed by their circumstance?

Grandma Loleng

A young woman goes back to her province in the countryside where she gets to once again meet her Grandmother Loleng - a distant relative and a senile parol (Christmas lantern) artisan. Together, they will explore Grandma Loleng’s landscape of memories, only to unearth her innermost secrets and wartime experiences. It is about memory and forgetting, both in the context of the personal and of the national consciousness.

Mammoth

While on a trip to Thailand, a successful American businessman tries to radically change his life. Back in New York, his wife and daughter find their relationship with their live-in Filipino maid changing around them. At the same time, in the Philippines, the maid's family struggles to deal with her absence.

Maging Sino Ka Man

Monique is a popular singer disguised as Digna to escape from her stepfather and his stepbrother Gilbert, who slowly killed her mother and also wanted to kill her to seize their wealth. Gilbert and his father thought Monique is already dead until he met Monique in a restaurant as a waitress. Due to this, Gilbert hunts Monique to get her killed. While trying to escape Gilbert's men, she accidentally met Carding, a thief in Ermita with his sidekick Libag. Their love story begins while she stays with Carding's slum along with the kids Carding is taking care of. Gilbert and his father were later caught during police operations and Monique recovered her house and wealth. In the end, Monique keeps Carding's kids in her house and confirmed their love for each other.

Ouija

Half-sisters Aileen and Romina, along with first cousins Ruth and Sandra, reunite in Camiguin to bury their grandmother. Accompanied by Sandra's friend, Lucy, the five girls dare to call on the spirits of the dead when they find their old Ouija board from when they were kids. The Ouija board is burned by accident before they are able to finish the ritual, trapping a murderous entity around them. As they begin to realize the terror that they have brought upon themselves, Aileen and Romina's hostile relationship even become more strained, while Lucy's sanity brings a heavy burden on Sandra, and Ruth's boyfriend, Gino, is unknowingly pulled into the danger and horror that await all of them. Confronted by imminent Death, the girls have nowhere to go unless they can identify the spirit and find out where it is buried. It is only by leading the spirit to its burial ground that they will able to release the spirit from the Ouija board and survive its fatal hauntings.

Pagnanasa

A young travelling salesman Rodel and a young innocent student Aleli. Aleli befriended a mature woman who is expert in love. The lady taught her and lured her to fantasize and to seek the love offered by men. Aleli became curious about the love that this lady is talking about and is out there to find love for herself until she dated Rodel who ended up raping her. After her painful encounter with Rodel, she got addicted to that sexual feeling and affection that he gave to her. This terrible experience made her to crave for more love from Rodel. Is her addiction with making love to Rodel going to stop or will it continue until she becomes a slave to it.

Uhaw

Set in 2040, Lee, a 15-year-old boy, thirsts for love and affection as he goes through an existential crisis.

A Tale of Filipino Violence

With the imminent death of his autocratic grandfather, coinciding with the burgeoning oppressive regime of Ferdinand Marcos, Servando Monzon III, inheritor of the hacienda and businesses of his powerful clan, agonizes on becoming the new feudal lord and capitulating with Marcos’ designs to control the Philippines. He is aware of his clan’s long history of violence; he knows the very violent history of his county; and he foresees a very violent future with the Marcos dictatorship.

1st Ko si 3rd

The film is about a 65-year old retiree Cory who gets reunited with her 1st love and finally, the supposed date happens 5 decades after they got separated.

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?

A Love Story

Ian Montes is a picture of success. Despite being a son of a shipping tycoon, Ian refused to just ride in his father's empire. He built his own real estate company and earned his first million at a very young age. He never looked back since then. Driven by his ambition to become better, if not as good as his father, Ian managed to make it on his own. But behind all the glory is a man yearning for love and recognition.

Back to Bataan

An Army colonel leads a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.

Mariquina

A Marikina shoemaker's daughter coming to terms with her grief in the wake of her father's suicide.

The Commitment

Kasal is a slice of life drama of a gay couple whose resolve to stay together is challenged as they attend a wedding. It also is an examination on how a gay couple navigates through the different institutions in Philippine society.

The Stepmother

The loving and nurturing Mariel marries Edward after his first wife abandons him and their three children. Mariel strives to win the acceptance and affection of her new stepchildren, even as she tries to define her role in the family.

Naked Weapon

A mysterious woman, known as Madame M, kidnaps forty pre-teen girls and transports them to a remote island to train them as the most deadly assassins. CIA operative Jack Chen follows the case for 6 years with no leads, but when a series of assassinations begin to occur, Jack suspects that Madame M is back in business.

Plus. Minus.

Told in reverse chronological order, an aspiring drag queen creates a world out of desolated motel rooms with the guy he met online.

Filipinas

Florencia, the matriarch of the Filipinas family, is in poor health, and Yolanda, the eldest of the Filipinas children, finds herself in the unenviable position of keeping her bickering family from disintegration. As the tension rises, Yolanda seeks refuge in a local church. She is critically injured trying to break up a nasty fight between brothers Emman and Samuel, forcing her family to make a life-changing decision.

Third World Happy

Wesley was a Fil-Am and a naturalized citizen when he left Philippines 12 years ago. In America, he aspired to become a painter, revealed that his parents died before he left the country to finish his dreams. Years later, he received a phone call that his loved one died and he was required to visit the wake. There he met his ex-girlfriend, his friends, his aunt and his own older brother will be his guide to give him a shining light and give him the courage to look at the coffin and say his last goodbyes.

Antonio's Secret

The story about a teenage boy, Antonio, whose emerging gay sexuality alienates him from his friends and family, until his libertine uncle, Jonbert, comes to live with him and his mother.

Seven Sundays

The Bonifacio siblings reunite when they find out their father is diagnosed with cancer. In the process, they have to deal with unresolved issues among themselves before it's too late.

Atsay

Nelia leaves her poor town to work as a maid in the city. Perceived as a lower-class citizen, Nelia gets harsh treatment that she does not deserve from her employer. She toils day and night to fulfill the wishes of her family at the expense of working herself to death. Ultimately, it is also in the city where she discovers an opportunity to move to a better life in the arms of a lover.

Ilusyon

Set in Philippine post-American colonialist era, where the American influence was still apparent, Ilusyon tells the story of Miguel, a young man from the countryside, who decides to visit his father, Pablo, a Modernist painter in Manila. Upon his arrival, he discovers that his father has decided to leave for the province but he opted to stay in Manila for a vacation. One day, he meets Stella, a nude model originally scheduled to pose for Miguel's father. Struck by her beauty, Miguel does the unthinkable - he pretends to be his father the painter. Developing a relationship based on a lie, things turn for the worse as Stella begets a strange skin disease that turns off Miguel. Surrounded by strange characters - a talking cow, a talkative mailman and a nosy landlady - Miguel is driven into a frenzy realization about beauty, lust, love and being true to oneself. An ambiguous ending underlines the surreal tone of the film.

Kristo

The Gospel of John is reimagined as a Filipino pasyon tale.