Mowelfund Film Institute

This is the life story of Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo, a Chinese-Filipina nun who founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Religious of the Virgin Mary.

In between harvests, to supplement their income, Judith is sent by her father to catch birds which they would peddle come Sunday outside the church. On their trip to the city, Judith requests that they watch a movie after selling off all the birds. What Judith gets in return is a torotot (trumpet) made out of rolled-up film negatives. The story is set in Bikol where it is a practice among rural folks to surround the perimeter of their farmlands with film negatives to ward off birds eating the newly sown palay seeds.

A historian travels through time from the swampland that one day turned into the squalor that it has become in contemporary time.

An impressionistic portrait of a Philippine metropolis.

A bride walks on the desert. She takes off her bridal ornaments and turns into a harlot. A multitude of people crawl on their bellies, become sick and soon die. A volcano erupts. White ashes of lahar cover the earth. The bride remembers her betrothal and repents--symbolically paving the way for the resurrection of her people. A final bridal march into a new heaven and earth takes place.

Mental hospital patients mysteriously dies one by one.

A young boy from the province goes to the city for the first time and learns about the urban life through the characters inside a jeepney.

An expressionistic story of a soldier’s lament as he lies on his hospital bed 50 years after the Second World War.

A family witnesses the transformation of their garbage into a monster.

With interviews with National Artists Lamberto Avellana and Lino Brocka and myriad talents from the Mowelfund community such as Nick Deocampo and Raymond Red, Beyond Mainstream documents the robust energy of nascent independent filmmaking in the country in the 80s. Based on Nick Deocampo's first book Short Film: The Emergence of a New Philippine Cinema (1985), it features the first Independent Film and Video Festival held in the Wave Cinema in Cubao, Quezon City, the first video theater in the country.

A collage film that finds its meaning from interspersing Lenten rites footage with random images using an optical printer.

Experimental essay film.

Two domestic helpers consigned by fate to a very awkward situation. Both are trapped in a common pitfall, but each has her own way of crawling out of the damned thing.

A humorous but serious film about the "GARBAGE" in our country.

Out of luck Boyong, a father of a sick child, tries to look for money.

Suring casts a spell of immense beauty, but is persecuted by humanity. She retreats to the forests, far from the prying eyes of humans. There, she befriends the Kuk-ok, a creature who can morph into any form.

An optically printed abstract film taken from the outtakes of an action flick mixed with noise, news broadcasts and hardcore music resulting into a raw collage powerfully evoking Filipino politics and culture.

A restless lizard and a man move faster and faster to a punk beat.

Secret Agent D'D saves tourist town from the deadly vicious vamp.

Repetitive camera movements combined with protest songs to produce a strident political statement.