Based on true stories. These Five Filipino overseas contract workers tell a plot contrary to what is perceived as ordinary and looked on the sunny side of life and work abroad in rose-colored glasses.
Social & External
The people behind it
Rafael Rosell
Diane Medina
Kakai Bautista
Christian Vasquez
Sylvia Sanchez
John Regala
Mel Kimura
Mark Neumann
Uno Santiago
Dave Bornea
Summoning his younger brother Andrew to the city of Dubai, the financially stable Raffy, a Filipino citizen who's spent several years overseas, hopes his sibling can find work so that they can finally move to Canada. Unfortunately, Raffy doesn't expect Andrew to fall in love with his ex-girlfriend, Faye, a woman Raffy, in fact, still cares for very much.
Loving husband Lino is on a mission: his wife, who works as a domestic in Milan, is missing and he's determined to find her. To do so, he enters Italy illegally and takes cover as one of the hundreds of Filipino migrant workers who make their way to Europe.
Sarah Gonzales, a grade school English teacher, joins the 150,000 Pinoy OFWs working in the United Kingdom to support her husband, Teddy Gonzales, in making a better living for their family. More than just a chronicle of the Filipinos experience working as nurses and caregivers in the UK, this story also charts Sarah's journey to self-discovery from a submissive wife who makes sacrifices for her husband's aspirations to an empowered woman who finds dignity and pride in a humbling job as a caregiver in London.
A woman returns to the Philippines after working abroad to find that her family has fallen apart in her absence.
Alo, an undocumented overseas Filipino worker, lives in an overcrowded house-share in London. He is struck by a latent neurological problem, which causes a bout of seizures and disrupts his situation in the household. The residents of the house are posed an ultimatum; should they risk Alo’s health or call an ambulance, potentially resulting in his deportation?
This is the story of Marie, an OFW in Italy who reflects the lives of most of the Filipinos living in Italy, the real life behind the sacrifices and efforts our countrymen is facing being a Filipino abroad. It also tells a story of how Filipinos are treated and known from this part of the world. An AI generated character perhaps but her life experiences and story is very real to Filipinos living on that country.
When Bambi discovers that her family has squandered their savings, they devise a plan to cover their debts — but first, she must fake her death.
A hardworking and loyal OFW, a chef from Dubai, returns home hoping to pursue his dream of owning his restaurant and starting his own life. However, he finds himself at odds with his family and their toxic tendencies, making him question “Where does sacrifice end and selfishness begin?"
From the inside of a balikbayan box, a daughter plays a video game system gifted to her by her father. She recalls the days before her father went overseas due to the lack of stable and livable employment and the ongoing drug war in the country. A meditation on parental bonds and the OFW experience from a child’s perspective.
During the late 1990s, a busy working-class Singaporean couple hires a Filipino woman as a maid and nanny to their young son.
The Philippines has one of the biggest diaspora of overseas workers in the world. The term Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) is well-known due to this. While the media has always acknowledged the big sacrifices that OFWs make in order to provide for their children an opportunity to live a better life than what they were given, no one talks about the perspective of the children who are left behind, having to grow up and face life without the presence of their parents. This film features Joanna, a Filipina in her mid-20s who has little to no connection left with her OFW mother. As she faces adulthood, she must decide if she wants to let go of her past. Bahay-Bahayan follows Joanna as she reels back to her past through memory and nostalgia.
Janno, the filmmaker, captures mundane but distanced moments at home with his retired OFW father, Michael. As the father-son attempt to rekindle their veiled relationship, years of pent-up sentiment gush out, revealing the key to their long-awaited reconnection.
The true story of Eudocia Tomas Pullido, an enslaved woman who served Pulitzer Prize-winning Filipino-American writer Alex Tizon's family ceaselessly for 56 years.
A couple's relationship is about to collapse, then the wife seems to be a different person, and the relationship seems to have been eased. However, her changeable personality and various weird behaviors make him suspicious. As the romance turns into a thriller, it turns out that the truth is not as it seems.
When her crush finally acknowledges her, an involuntarily celibate college student must hook up with him before he pushes her away.
A Turkish immigrant worker has died 1965. The preparation of the body is contrasted with a letter written by his wife in Turkey, which describes the situation and expectations of his family in the homeland. The presentation creates the atmosphere of a parable in which the parting of immigrant worker from his homeland is described, but which could just as well be his return home, as a corpse. The story revolves around the ambivalence of parting and the divergence between the actual events of life and the expectancy and hopes one has of this life. This is shown through the comparison between the hard fact of the immigrant's death and his wife's hopeful expectations of him and his successful return.
Shiva, a charming college student juggling three different relationships. As he tries to keep them secret, love, lust, and chaos collide in a playful mix of adult humor, romance, and comedy.
Mbeu Yosintha was made to help farmers and rural communities cope with the effects of climate change and in particular the ever changing rain patterns in South East Africa. The film is a drama using local actors and was devised with Malawian writer Jonathan Mbuna following extensive research with various agricultural NGOs in Malawi. Following successful drama like Mawa Langa this film has already been seen in Malawi by over 10,000 people in rural areas using a pedal-power cinema kit.
Fang Yimiao is a 23-year-old woman standing at the fragile edge of her life. Xiang Taiyang is a reclusive and eccentric 60-year-old man who believes his time has already run out. In a modest rented house in Yong’an, two strangers at opposite ends of existence cross paths. What begins as a quiet coexistence slowly unfolds into a healing symphony about living, loving, and finding reconciliation with oneself and the world.
Doña Margarita, a lady of high society, wants for her son Pablo a wife of the same social level. He, however, loves the dressmaker’s daughter, whom he secretly marries thanks to the services of a priest friend. The couple must continue fighting against the matron’s crooked plans, until in an unfortunate accident, Pablo kills his wife’s stepfather and must flee to Europe. Years pass, and Pablo is unaware that he has a son. When he finally returns, thanks to the child, he reunites with the love of his life and definitively puts an end to the perverse plans of his mother.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
The inspiring true story of Richard Montañez, the Frito Lay janitor who channeled his Mexican American heritage and upbringing to turn the iconic Flamin' Hot Cheetos into a snack that disrupted the food industry and became a global pop culture phenomenon.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.
Young, beautiful, talented Alexis Winston comes from nowhere to become a figure skating superstar. But her rise to stardom isn’t easy. She has to push herself, reinvent herself, and most painfully of all, leave her hometown boyfriend behind. When a tragic fall leaves her blind, she needs someone to believe in her, to love her; someone to convince her she has the strength to skate and dream again.
Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
When a rebellious teen embarks on a solo summer journey to connect with her roots, she finds herself in a new world, geared up for the ride of her life, and discovers she had the drive in her all along.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
In 1917, outside the parish of Fátima, Portugal, a 10-year-old girl and her two younger cousins witness multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, who tells them that only prayer and suffering will bring an end to World War I. As secularist government officials and Church leaders try to force the children to recant their story, word of the sighting spreads across the country, inspiring religious pilgrims to flock to the site in hopes of witnessing a miracle..
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.