Tag: QCinema 2019

QCinema is perhaps the only legitimate international film festival in the country, an obvious standout for having exceptional and extensive curation. Not only does it bring award-winning films that would have never screened in local theaters under normal circumstances, it also gives Filipino audiences a glimpse into cinemas rarely discussed in our film community. This… Continue reading Submissions to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in QCinema2019: ‘System Crasher,’ ‘And Then We Danced,’ ‘Homeward,’ and ‘Buoyancy’

Of all human emotions, nothing is as ghastly as grief. It is a ghost that appears and grasps your heart enough to suffocate you, or slowly tangle itself in the veins of it as if it belongs there. In every aspect that involves loss, grief lingers. We all grieve in one way or another, but… Continue reading QCinema 2019: ‘The Long Walk’ – An Exercise in Grief

One of the things Pedro Costa says about filmmaking is that “If you don’t respect time, everything in the cinema goes too fast and too quick.” For Costa, there is patience in telling and executing a story, and then there is time. In Vitalina Varela, the long streets of Lisbon are haunted by the migrant… Continue reading ‘Vitalina Varela’: Lessons in Grief

There’s something thrilling about illicit love stories; one must think that desire is, but an emotion so often executed to boredom but when given ample cause, it adds more excitement when unleashed in cautious restraint. It strikes deeply and blossoms into full-blown rebellion, and with it comes its own hell.  At first glance, Ertanto Robby… Continue reading QCinema 2019: ‘Ave Maryam’ – Finding Love in Forbidden Places

Glenn Barit’s Cleaners opens with the last day of school, where 8 students—the assigned cleaners of the day—idly work all over the room. There’s a sense of boredom to the task, the short attention span of the teenage mind wandering over to the window, then to the nothingness of the ceilings and floors and each… Continue reading QCinema 2019: ‘Cleaners’ – Of Beginnings and Teenage Rage