Refrain (2024)

An Unscripted Earth

Lawrence and Jaime were best friends in high school, but attend university on opposite sides of the globe. After four years apart, they reunite for a hedonistic week in Manila, Jaime’s hometown, untouched by Duterte’s War on Drugs but unable to escape nostalgia and ennui. Shot in one of Asia’s fastest growing megacities, An Unscripted Earth is an award-winning film about memory, young adulthood, and the uncertain future of our globalised world.

The Family That Doesn't Weep

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

Baconaua

After a turbulent squall in the night, villagers wake up to the astonishing sight of the sea that has turned red.

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.

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.

Reverie

A friend group attempts to keep their bond alive and strong as they prepare for the last culminating activity before the academic year comes to an end.

Uhaw

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

Love You to the Stars and Back

A girl named Mika decides to go on a road trip to look for aliens. During her trip, she accidentally bumps into Caloy whom she gives a free ride to until he reaches his destination. Mika then finds out that Caloy has cancer but despite it, he has learned to accept his fate. Both embark on a journey filled with adventures and misadventures not knowing they would fall in love with each other along the way.

Moments in a Stolen Dream

A coming-of-age story of college student Joey, who's lost all sense of direction. His only inspiration is music, but he is yet to finish writing a song. His life changes when he meets Ana and his world is suddenly turned upside-down.

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.

The Childe

Han, a Filipino-Korean boxer hits the final punch against his opponent at an illegal game and returns home with a few dollars to pay for his mother's surgery.

Manila Death Squad

An ambitious journalist challenges the leader of a violent vigilante group to a high-stakes drinking game that may score her a scoop or a bullet to the head.

Trophy Wife

A woman falls in love with a man, but is wronged by him and his brother. She then tries to exact revenge on him, his brother and his new lover.

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, agonises on becoming the new feudal lord and capitulating with Marcos’ designs to control the Philippines. Aware of his clan’s long history of violence, Monzon knows the very violent history of his county and foresees a very violent future with the dictatorship.

Once A Princess

A high school princess is cursed by the geek whose affections she toyed with.

Yesterday's Promise

Three strong-willed sisters face tough choices.

Hotshots

This is a story of adolescent boys and girls and their early experiences in life and love. How they took life's realities and learned its lessons.

An Indivisible Heaven

Noel struggles to accept his father's remarriage to Agnes and the arrival of his step-sister, Melody. The two grow up harboring a bitter hatred for each other. When their parents die, Noel becomes Melody's legal guardian, much to her dismay. Later, each now married, the two become business partners and eventually grow closer.

Tinik sa Dibdib

Lando is married to Lorna. He took on the huge responsibility of taking care of his widowed aunt Trixia and her two children, the youngest being a moron. Because of his obligations to his aunt's family, his relationship with his wife Lorna has not been as happy and ideal as they would have liked. Aside from being needy and dependent on Lando, Trixia has been very close to Lando, a fact that is very much seen by Lorna. A deep dark secret will be eventually revealed to Lorna: that Lando and Trixia is involved romantically and that Trixia's youngest child is Lando's. In the end, Lorna will be slowly relieved of the thorns that has been weighing down on her chest.

History of Ha

Puppeteer Hernando Alamada returns home, experiencing a bitter transition in the aftermath of the unexpected death of Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay. Communicating only using his puppet, he goes on a journey with a nun, a sex worker and a teenage boy to a remote island where gold has been discovered.

Jologs

Jologs portrays the intersecting stories of various working-class people who are all tied to one coffee shop and are struggling to make ends meet in the Philippines.

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.

Kristo

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

Pintakasi

About a young painter who arrives at an island made of garbage. He uses the island and its denizens as his canvas and fights to protect the island from forces that threaten it.

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.

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.

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.

Bes and the Beshies

It tells the story of four friends: a single mom hoping to complete her family, a martyr wife who will do anything to keep her family from falling apart, a mistress who is desperate to have her own family, and a young woman who fully supports them.