This year, the QCinema International Film Festival (QCinema) carries on with its mission to feature the best of new and seasoned homegrown storytellers.
Running from Oct. 21 to 30 in different cinemas, the festival is set to premiere new independent feature and documentary films whose narratives speak about the intricacies of life, love, and history.
Circle Competition
Samantha Lee’s Billie and Emma looks into the depths of a young female friendship. City girl Billie meets provincianalass Emma, together, they go through the experience of first love and they explore what it means to be a family.
Dog Days: Pinoy Hoop Dreams by Timmy Harn shows half-black half-Filipino wannabe basketball star Michael Jordan Ulili chase his hoop dreams. The rookie player believes he has special God-given powers to have what it takes.
In Dan Villegas’ Hintayan ng Langit, a woman in limbo comes to grips with her past. A new list of eligibles will soon be released and her name is finally being considered, but there’s a shortage of rooms in purgatory and she would have to share a room with a man from her past.
In Masla A Papanok, Gutierrez Mangansakan II goes back to 1892 when a giant bird mysteriously appears in Maguindanao foretelling the fall and rise of colonial empires.
Set in the idyllic city of Naga in the Bicol region, Jordan Dela Cruz’s Panata sa Bundok Gulsuk explores a dark coming-of-age story. A naive teenage boy journeys towards the peak of the mythical Mount Gulsuk to search for a cure for the mysterious, incurable disease that afflicted his pregnant high school girlfriend.
Giancarlo Abrahan’s Sila-Sila follows the story of a gay man, who, while at a high school reunion, tries to avoid confrontations with people from his past, especially his drunk ex-boyfriend. And so he escapes through his gay-dating app, meeting “strangers” in the vaguely familiar campus.
DocQC entries
In All Grown Up, Wena Sanchez tells a story about what it means to help the people you love the most. After years of nurturing and protecting her younger brother, a filmmaker is forced to question her ability to help the people she loves when her own daughter begins to have troubles of her own.
Hiyas Baldemor Bagabaldo’s Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala shows the journey of a third-generation mastercarver in transforming blocks of wood into a gigantic Jesus crucified on a 12 feet cross. This life passage is juxtaposed to a procession of images including that of a 500-year-old Dead Christ.
Meanwhile, Shallah Montero looks into the Philippine drug war through the eyes of women in her documentary film, Luzviminda.