Cinemalaya 2026: Ganggang, Status: Rejected, A.Ni.Mal

 

Children's stories have been a staple of Cinemalaya since its very first edition. They have been used as a unique lens from which to tell stories about society as a whole. In JL Burgos' Ganggang, we see firsthand the effects of state violence and militarization in a small rural community through the eyes of three children.

These three children are Mel (Raine Dela Cruz), Ilay (Kenneth Vincent Mendoza) and Tenten (Don Rishmond Cerbito). Mel, the son of an army sergeant, moves into the community as part of a greater operation from the military to 'surveil' the town for insurgents. He befriends his two classmates, who have their own history with state violence in their town: Ilay is the son of two desaparecidos, while Tenten is the son of a farmer who soon becomes missing as the military ramps up their operations.

This is JL Burgos' first fiction film after a career working in documentaries, including 2024's Alipato at Muog. Unfortunately, the transition from docus to fiction is a little rough: the film is unsubtle, sometimes peppered with dialogue that repeats what we're already seeing. Sometimes the supporting cast functions more as archetypes rather than people, and the film doesn't quite know when to end, and when it does, it fizzles out.

That said, the film still manages to create something genuinely affecting, especially in the multiple tragedies (most of them sadly based on real life) that happen over the course of the film. Burgos litters the film with many small easter eggs and references to his own life as an activist and the brother of a desaparecido. Despite its roughness, Ganggang is an important film, and in the future should and will likely be remembered as one.

There comes a point in one's life when it feels like everyone's passed you by. When people and relationships have left you behind, it's easy to think that you're no longer deserving of love. The mere notion of being desired, then, feels exhilarating, addictive.

Biring (Ruby Ruiz) is an elderly grandmother whose wish is to join her son Clark in the USA. Clark is an illegal immigrant, a status made even more precarious thanks to the state of the country and its current views on immigration. Biring has been rejected numerous times, and her dogged insistence puts her at odds with her daughter (Alessandra de Rossi), who is doing everything she can to hold the household together. When an American man follows Biring on Facebook looking for romance, she's understandably hooked.

On grander scales, Status: Rejected juxtaposes a woman's search for love, acceptance and validation with our nation's relationship with our former colonizers. We keep coming back to them like we're a person seeking the love of an abusive partner, even though the promises of love and a better life that we associate with them are not guaranteed, and are delusions at worst. Biring's dogmatic reverence of that idea of a better life abroad destroys her family and splits it apart. Her son clings on desperately for work despite the threat of deportation, and her daughter has her own struggles at home because Biring's impositions on the family are unsustainable.

On the other hand, Status: Rejected is a deeply personal family story, reflected in its tight (almost claustrophobic), intimate frames. It is a story of generations, and how the desire to avoid the mistakes of the previous generation sometimes makes us commit the same mistakes anyway. Curiously, the film follows gendered lines, so it is also a story about women, and how they are often left behind or exploited even though love and acceptance is all they want. In the end, the greatest form of love the women of Status: Rejected will ever need will not come from a stranger (or another country), but from each other.

The 2010 edition of Cinemalaya saw the release of Dennis Marasigan's Vox Populi, a film about a rookie politician running for mayor and learning the ins and outs (as well as the dark side) of politics. It assumes that these systems corrupt a person when they come in, irrevocably tainting them.

On the other hand, Dustin Celestino's latest work, A.ni.mal, has its characters already tainted from the start, as if the corruption is already part of their DNA. It comes naturally to them, and for them, the right to rule is a birthright, something ordained by God. At one point, Grace Reyes (Bituin Escalante) goes on a tirade stating that because of her service to the nation, she deserves the overseas trips, she deserves the designer bags, she deserves it all. Quite tellingly Celestino does not show what "service" she's done for the community, perhaps because there isn't any. These are people at their vilest, most contemptible selves.

On the other hand, these politicians stay in power partially thanks to people who work within the system for their own self interest. For John (Anthony Falcon) a worker at an animal shelter sponsored by the Mayor and his family, he does not act to get accountability from these politicians because that would likely mean the shelter would shut down, he would be out of a job, and many animals would die. His decision to do that is a survival mechanism. It is a dark and twisted form of pakikisama that is wielded to the benefit of those in power and to the detriment of everyone else.

That said, A.ni.mal is a comedy, Celestino's funniest film yet. It builds on the absolutely depraved things people can do, and the things the rest of us do to turn a blind eye. As always, Celestino's style is discoursive and rhetorical: he provides the milieu and asks questions, but doesn't spoonfeed any answers to you either. It is a film carried by its cast, and its cast delivers: of note is Bituin Escalante, who steals every scene she's in.

If A.ni.mal is the joke, then it is a joke told at our expense. Because despite every ridiculous thing that goes on in the movie, the people at the top win, and we lose. It is only when we change our way of looking at things can we, maybe tip the scales and turn the tables with our own hands.

Cinemalaya 2026: Tayo Lang ang Nakakaalam, 2 Valid IDs, Hand of God

 NOTE: SPOILERS MAY BE PRESENT IN THE REVIEWS BELOW.

The one thing that stuck the most while watching David Corpuz's Tayo Lang ang Nakakaalam is in its usage of barriers: curtains, doors, walls and mirrors that separate its characters in both a physical and thematic sense. It's a clever way for the filmmakers to visually depict its central theme: the secrets we keep from each other and ourselves. It's a remarkable feat from DP Adam Dumaguin (in his first full length credit) and Production Designer David Esguerra (Huling Palabas).

At one point, curtains are used like that of a confessional, that is, to keep secrets within its bounds: during a moment alone, Bong (Miguel Odron) calls his coworker and 'friend' Neil (Martin Del Rosario, in a career-best performance) to join him in his hospital bed after meeting relatives. The relatives don't know any better and accept the cover story that Neil is just a friend, but in that small, intimate moment together we are shown that Bong and Neil are lovers. During another moment, Neil shuts the curtain on a nosy bantay from a nearby bed curious about Bong's condition.

Bong's parents, Benjie (Epy Quizon) and Gloria (Yayo Aguila) are accepting of Bong and Neil's relationship, but keep up with the facade with family members to avoid any unpleasantness. However, Bong and Neil aren't completely transparent with the couple, and when the truth of Bong's illness is revealed, conflict arises that directly touches upon the classic ethical question of disclosure. And at multiple points in the film, when in the company of someone who is otherwise worthy of trust, secrets are kept all the same. One may ask, why?

To answer that question, it must be said that the blame falls neither on Neil or Bong, but on a society that stigmatizes everything about them. Secrecy is inextricably bound to the life of an LGBTQ person: from the act of coming out, to hiding in the closet, to having a "beard" in order to conceal a same-sex relationship, everything has to be done on the low, behind walls both physical and emotional. To keep secrets is thus a means of protection, a survival mechanism against a society built around denying them the chance to live a normal life.

And thus. the film tells us, to be true to one's self and others is a means of protest, a profoundly powerful form of self-love, but love whose attainment that can be a lifelong challenge.

A bureaucracy per se is not a bad thing; a well functioning, efficient bureaucracy helps societies navigate complex systems. On the other hand, there always runs the risk of overcomplicating things to the point where systems meant to serve the people now inconvenience and even hinder them. In order to bypass these bloated, cumbersome, over-bureaucratized systems, the ruling class creates hierarchies whose levels operate on different rules, and it is sometimes in their interest to keep this system for their own benefit.

Ma-an Asuncion Dagnalan's 2 Valid IDs is a film about queues. Some have described this as a film about our healthcare system, but this is only partially true - our healthcare system involves a lot of paperwork, so it is able to demonstrate our tendency to overcomplicate our own systems. Our central character is Sylvia (Marietta Subong), a dedicated, loving wife taking care of her husband Ramon (Joey Marquez). Ramon is confined in the hospital for COPD, and he needs an operation called a bullectomy. Note from a doctor here - if you have COPD and you need a bullectomy, you're in pretty bad shape. As Ramon is confined in the charity ward, he's in a crowded queue of his own, waiting for his turn to get schedule for surgery. There is a solution: move to a semi-private room, and his queue priority is upgraded. That takes money, and a rich relative has the money to make that happen, but Sylvia can't access the money because she doesn't have a valid ID.

As she navigates a confusing, complicated and frustrating system ostensibly made to protect its citizens, Sylvia patiently lines up again and again, taking up one queue after another in what seems like an endless line of lines. But it soon becomes evident that in this society, there are two lines: one line where the system works as the ruling class intended, and one line for everyone else, including Sylvia. In principle the systems that Sylvia navigates mean well, as the legislation behind these rules are meant to protect from fraud and abuse. But if a system does not take into account the sheer volume of people lining up, and if it is not implemented with compassion for those same people in line, the emergence of alternative systems in order to bypass them (fixers and the like) is inevitable. In the Philippines, it is more or less part of our culture. In the hospital setting, the people in Ramon's charity ward get by through their own ways and means: sharing medications, seeking advice from sympathetic healthcare workers to ease their financial burden, fostering a sense of community in the ward. It's a phenomenon that I've observed in some capacity myself in the course of my training and practice.

This idea of queuing also ties into how the time demanded of people from different social classes is stratified in the same way. Time is valuable to everyone; it is a precious commodity. In a fair system, this time should be equally partitioned, but it is not.

2 Valid IDs can get rather didactic when trying to make its point, lampshading its many points through redundant dialogue. It works best when it shows individual character moments, given its talented cast: Subong (a.k.a. Pokwang) is excellent as always, while Zaijian Jaranilla delivers one of his best performances. Zaijian's role, the bantay and grandson of Ramon's charity ward bedmate, offers a glimpse of the compassion and solidarity we all foster while waiting in these endless lines. It is a temporary solution, for sure, as the real change is structural and culture-wide. The film is not quite equipped to address any solutions to the problem it posits, as it's firmly a part of what I call a 'cinema of indignation'. In any case, if it makes you think the next time you fall in line somewhere, it will have done its job.

The director's statement from the Cinemalaya film Hand of God says that this film is based on a true story. Said anecdote basically spoils a crucial part of the film, so it's best not to read it. I have no problem with this particular part of the film; my problems lie with everything else.

The film takes place in a secluded town in Basilan. A group of soldiers arrive at the town in order to monitor the town's alleged ties to insurgent groups. Reyes (Ruru Madrid), an army lieutenant,  is a fan of football and installs a football post in hthe middle of the town to create a rapport with the kids there. He recognizes the talent in some of the town kids and hatches an audacious plan to have them compete in Manila.

Hand of God does not work for me at a fundamental level. It constructs a fantasy world based on its real life source, one that feels sanitized for festival  audiences. From the very start, some of its aspects bothered me. Despite being set in Basilan, its characters do not speak Yakan or Tausug; most of the dialogue is in Tagalog. Casting non-Mindanaoan actors in Mindanaoan roles is a personal pet peeve, and even more so when they don't speak the language. To be fair, the film has a consultant (hopefully for the cultural aspects of hte film), but the depiction of the local culture of the community living in Basilan is limited, and its evident through which lens this film's being seen in. But that isn't even the most egregious part of this film.

From films like Bula sa Langit (2022) that talked about PTSD to outright propaganda pieces like 2019's Children of the River, Cinemalaya has had a complicated relationship with the military in its stories. Arguably, the film could be read as the latter, but the thing is it isn't good at being propaganda, either. Lt. Reyes tries to uplift the children's situation but he does not uplift the community, nor does he deal with the causes behind the insurgency in the first place. When he fails in uplifting the children, he sulks, gets depressed, and leaves the community, never to come back again. Reyes wants to atone for past sins,  but he does not abandon the very system that helped oppress these people and once things don't go his way, he leaves the community! Note that he only leaves the military after the tragic event happens, and not before - a tragic event that wouldn't have happened had he considered the children's situation and relative safety. This is a film where people from underserved, marginalized regions are (inadvertently or not) depicted as props in order for an outside to gain some character development.

As a sports movie, the film isn't very successful either. There are scenes of the kids participating in a tournament, but only in a montage. Because the depiction is lacking, I found it hard to believe these kids could beat well fed, well-prepared teams.

No doubt, the film's cloying sentimentality and blatant emotional manipulation will fool audience members who don't know any better or who are easily fooled by surface level, shallow themes whose logic falls apart if one looks close enough. But not me.