News and Updates

QCinema Project Market (QPM), organised by Quezon City Film Commission, has selected 20 projects for the second edition of the event, which is taking place during QCinema International Film Festival in Metro Manila, Philippines.

The curated selection of mid to advanced-development projects includes seven from Southeast Asian filmmakers and producers, as well as 13 projects from the Philippines. QPM aims to provide a platform for the selected projects to connect with international partners and potential financiers, and will also hand out grants and prizes valued at around $300,000.

“QPM plays a crucial role in advancing the regional film landscape by nurturing globally resonant films that elevate the festival experience,” said the organisers in a statement. “The event hosts one-on-one meetings, project presentations and networking events to facilitate connections and collaborations. Selected projects benefit from financial support, including around $300,000 in grants and prizes, as well as from the wealth of experience and resources offered by industry partners.”

Projects selected for last year’s QPM include Don’t Cry Butterfly, which is premiering in Venice Critics Week; Tale Of The Land, which is playing in Busan’s New Currents competition; and two projects that are currently in post-production – Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana and Woo Ming Jin’s Fox King. In addition, Le Bao’s The Sea Is Calm Tonight is scheduled to start shooting in November. 

QPM is scheduled to take place November 14-16, while the 12th edition of the QCinema festival runs November 11-17. 

SOUTHEAST ASIAN PROJECTS:

The Beer Girl In Yangon (Myanmar, Indonesia)
Dir: Sein Lyan Tun
Prod: Yulia Evina Bhara
Logline: When her father is arrested for political activism, Lily has to work in the beer station in Yangon, where she falls in love with a karaoke singer and a mysterious older man while dealing with her swinging menstruation hallucination mood.

Future Laobans (Myanmar)
Dir: Maung Sun
Prod: Emmanuel Angeles
Logline: In the jade mining town of Hpakant, three teenagers with different backgrounds, Aung, Sun, and Nyi, embark on a risky journey to smuggle a valuable jade stone to China, driven by their dreams of becoming millionaires overnight.

I’ll Smile In September (Singapore, India)
Dir: Aakash Chhabra
Prod: Fran Borgia
Logline: After getting separated from the love of his life and losing his front teeth in a brutal altercation which ensues after it, a young brass band player in Old Delhi attempts to move on in life by finding his smile back.

To Leave, To Stay (Cambodia)
Dir: Danech San
Prod: Daniel Mattes
Logline: Bored of her island life, Mera travels with her friend Bopha to visit a soldier she met online. Weeks later, Mera goes missing. Bopha’s search begins.

Other People’s Dreams (Singapore)
Dir: Daniel Hui
Prods: Tan Si En, Joel Neo
Logline: Two runaway souls escaping a dark past meet in the chaos of Singapore. They find a way to survive by stealing, unseen from the public, melding themselves with the rhythms of the dreaming city.

The Passport (Malaysia)
Dir: Ananth Subramaniam
Prod: Choo Mun Bel
Logline: Passport chronicles the life of a working-class Indian family from the perspective of Kalki, a Punk Rocker who confronts the impact of cultural expectations in and out of home.

Picturehouse (Vietnam)
Dir: Minh-Nghiem Nguyen-Vo
Prod: Johann Chapelan
Logline: In 1960s Vietnam, a family-run movie house becomes a haven for an eight-year-old boy who sees his world being undone by war.

FILIPINO PROJECTS:

Angel De Dios
Dir: Joel Ruiz
Prod: Madonna Tarrayo
Logline: After a heist goes terribly wrong, a bank robber inadvertently ends up with a three-month-old baby as he escapes the scene. An unexpected relationship develops between the two as danger follows their every move.

Daughters Of The Sea (Anak Alon)
Dir: Martika Ramirez Escobar
Prod: Rajiv Idnani
Logline: Three lives intertwine like kindred beings from the same soil. Lucia, a curious tour guide who unknowingly meets her father for the first time, lives vicariously through two people—a pet shop owner who tries to keep a dying mermaid alive and a fish vendor whose long-missing husband reappears from nowhere.

Eve (Ewa)
Dir: Keith Sicat
Prod: Sari Dalena
Logline: In a future of intergalactic migrant workers, a scientist marooned on a hostile alien world struggles to reconnect with her child who is light years away.

Golden
Dir: JP Habac
Prods: Omar Sortijas, Catsi Catalan
Logline: In order to raise funds for a house in Manila, a group of homeless gay seniors reunite and revive their former drag queen performances.

Heaven Help Us (Bato Bato Sa Langit Ang Tamaan Magagalit)
Dir: Eve Baswel
Prod: John Torres, Jules Katanyag
Logline: 12 hours before the collapse of the Manila Film Center in 1981, we follow the lives of the construction workers working tirelessly to complete the impossible deadline of finishing the building in less than two weeks before its opening.

Hum
Dir: Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan
Prods: Alemberg Ang, Hannah Schierbeek
Logline: An earthquake unravels the lives of two runaway land defenders turned rodeo stars haunted by their tragic past.

Molder
Dir: Kenneth Dagatan
Prods: Bradley Liew, Junxiang Huang
Logline: Set in a sleepy, rainy town in Southern Italy, Cesar, a Filipino immigrant, lives with his local Italian wife. When they meet a mysterious young Filipino man who places a curse on them, their lives turn into a nightmare of physical decay.

Mother Maybe (Inahing Baka)
Dir: Sonny Calvento
Prods: Arden Rod Condez, Sheron Dayoc
Logline: A son is reunited with his mother in Tokyo as he joins a high-stakes Japanese game show, but his joy turns to horror as he discovers that at night, his mother becomes different.

My Neighbor The Gangster
Dir: Mario Cornejo
Prods: Monster Jimenez, Jon Romulo
Logline: A young boy’s life is changed when a gangster moves his mistress and love child next door to the boy’s seaside residence.

Please Bear With Me
Dir: Gabriela Serrano
Prods: Gale Osorio, Keith Deligero
Logline: In an alternate Philippines where people have lost the ability to dream, a single mother Elenita works as a call center agent who gets paid in “dream-time”. Through these transient dreams, she relives her glory days as a rising pop star. As Elenita drifts deeper into her shimmering fantasies, her artist daughter embarks on a career that inexplicably begins to mirror her mother’s past.

The Returning
Dir: Atsuko Hirayanagi
Prods: Will Manalang, Eiko Mizuno Gray
Logline: A homeless Japanese man in Manila joins an environmental charity offering a chance to rebuild his life by planting trees in deforested areas of the Philippines, only to discover that it is a sinister cult serving an ancient forest spirit.

Secret Cries (Lihim Na Luha)
Dir: Eileen Cabiling
Prods: Darlene Malimas, Jericho Rosales
Logline: Manuel, addicted to crystal meth, is forced into rehab, where he confronts his darkest secret: he killed his beloved wife, an aswang – a mythical Filipino vampire – to save their newborn daughter. Now, with his daughter’s 13th birthday approaching, he fears whether she will reveal a human heart or a vampire’s curse.

A Ship Of Fools (Baradero)
Dir: Keith Deligero
Prod: Gale Osorio
Logline: Baradero is a psychological period drama set in a Philippines that is at the brink of World War II. It explores how two troubled men, Kilum and Enrico, torn between different moments in history, are strangely connected by the Arko Niño, a ship of fools that bears witness to the trauma of history and its enduring impact on the present.

Reference: QCinema Project Market 2024: Full Line-Up - Streamlined (streamlinedglobal.com)

QCinema Project Market

The Philippines‘ Quezon City Film Commission and QCinema have revealed the lineup for the second edition of the QCinema Project Market (QPM).

Twenty projects were selected from 63 submissions across the Philippines and Southeast Asia. The market aims to connect filmmakers with international partners and offers approximately $300,000 in grants and prizes.

Notable projects from last year’s QPM have made significant progress. Rafael Manuel’s “Filipiniana” and Woo Ming Jin’s “Fox King” are in post-production, while Duong Dieu Linh’s “Don’t Cry Butterfly” is world premiering at Venice Critics’ Week.

Author: Naman Ramachandran
Reference: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/philippines-qcinema-2024-projects-1236127478/