These are fifteen feature films you shouldn’t miss at the QCinema International Film Festival which will take place from November 17 – 26, 2023 in Quezon City, Philippines.

City of Wind by Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir – Qatar, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Mongolia, France | 2023 – 104 minutes
Seventeen year-old Ze (Tergel Bold-Erdene) has been training to be a shaman. 16 year-old Maralaa (Nomin-Erdene Ariunbyambam) arrives seeking the help of his master, and for the first time, Ze experiences what it is to be young and in love. City of Wind is a snapshot of Mongolia in the present day: still immersed in mystical tradition, even as society moves forward into modernity. (QCinema 2023)

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Essential Truths of the Lake by Lav Diaz – Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, Taiwan, Switzerland, United Kingdom | 2023 – 215 minutes
A prequel to When the Waves are Gone. John Lloyd Cruz reprises his role as police lieutenant Hermes Papauran as he takes on a 15-year-old case involving the disappearance of the artist Esmeralda Stuart (Shaina Magdayao). Diaz places this investigation in the context of Duterte’s deadly drug war, and crafts discourse around the purpose of the Philippine National Police, and its many failings. (QCinema 2023)

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Evil Does Not Exist by Ryusuke Hamaguchi – Japan | 2023 – 106 minutes
Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and his young daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) live in the quiet mountain village of Harasawa. The village’s serenity is disrupted by the arrival of Playmode, a Tokyo company that intends to build a glamping site for city tourists in the village. Hamaguchi patiently studies the peaceful rhythm of this village, which exists in union with nature, to better portray the kind of ecological damage that the arrival of these urban interlopers will bring. (QCinema 2023)

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Hungry Ghost Diner by We Jun Cho – Malaysia | 2023 – 116 minutes
Due to lockdown, food truck operator Bonnie (Chen Keat Yoke) is stuck in her hometown, surrounded by the ghosts of her relatives. She ends up having to find a way to save her mother from a terrible fate in the afterlife. A strange, funny film, Hungry Ghost Diner capitalizes on the casual relationship most Asians have with the supernatural. (QCinema 2023)

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Love is a Gun by Hong-Chi Lee – Taiwan, Hong Kong | 2023 – 81 minutes
Sweet Potato (Lee Hong-chi) spent some years in prison for working for a syndicate. He’s trying to go straight, but his past keeps catching up with him, trying to draw him back into a violent life. Lee Hong-chi, known for his work in acting, makes his feature film writing and directing debut with a sensitive portrait of directionless youth in Taiwan, exploring the life of a young man who wants to find a better life for himself, but is unable to find the opportunities to do so. (QCinema 2023)

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Mimang by Taeyang Kim – Korea | 2023 – 92 minutes
TIFF’s Giovanni Fulvi calls Mimang “A condensed Korean indie counterpart to Richard Linklater’s Before series,” the movie following a man and a woman (Ha Seong-guk and Lee Myung-ha) as they walk the streets of Seoul, a city that seems to keep changing as time goes by. Kim Tae-yang and cinematographer Kim Jin-hyeong turns Seoul’s streets into magical, amorphous landscape, changing in the way that memories can change, even between people with deep connections to a place, a time, and each other. (QCinema 2023)

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National Anarchist: Lino Brocka by Khavn – Philippines | 2023 – 70 minutes
Maverick filmmaker Khavn assembles pieces of National Artist Lino Brocka’s filmography from various sources into an unusual collage that forms a complex and compelling biographic portrait of the filmmaker as an artist, a storyteller, and a man with many things to say about the Philippines. A work of screaming freedom set to music by the Brockas and Max Jocson, Khavn breaks apart the legend of the artist and reforms it into a chaotic yet comprehensive look into the life of another maverick. (QCinema 2023)

Nowhere Near by Miko Revereza – Philippines | 2023 – 95 minutes
Miko Revereza is a film diarist, using the documentary form as a medium for self-examination. Shot over the course of several years, Nowhere Near has him documenting his return to his native Pangasinan, investigating a family curse, and exploring the colonial history of the coastal province. As he traverses the geography of the place that is meant to be his home, he is forced to confront difficult truths about who he is and what he wants. (QCinema 2023)

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Perfect Days by Wim Wenders – Japan, Germany | 2023 – 123 minutes
Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) makes his living cleaning Tokyo’s public toilets. When not at work, he spends his days quietly, reading books, listening to music, and taking photos of trees. Over time, a series of unusual encounters reveals his past. Wenders places Yakusho, one of Japan’s finest actors, at the center of a character study that gradually reveals a deeply affecting core to a human being that finds joy in the mundane. (QCinema 2023)

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Raging Grace by Paris Zarcilla – UK | 2023 – 99 minutes
Joy (Max Eigenmann) is an undocumented immigrant in the UK, secretly sleeping in the homes of her employers with her young daughter Grace while the houses are empty. She feels grateful to have landed a job caring for a dying older man in his large estate, but soon discovers sinister motives from the people she thinks could provide her salvation. Paris Zarcilla makes post-colonial horror out of the experience of the OFW,  capitalizing on the fear of being discovered, and elevating the tension between servant and master to monstrous levels. (QCinema 2023)

River by Junta Yamaguchi – Japan | 2023 – 86 minutes
In a quiet corner of Kyoto, there stands a quaint, one-hundred-year-old inn. There, attendant Mikoto (Riko Fujitani) finds herself stuck in a time loop, playing out the same two minutes over and over again. Director Junta Yamaguchi established his time loop bona fides in his very clever debut Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes. In this film, he continues to play with time mechanics on a small scale, having characters enact plans that have to be pulled off just two minutes at a time. (QCinema 2023)

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Solids By The Seashore by Patiparn Boontarig – Thailand | 2023 – 93 minutes
The Southern Thai town of Songkhla is under threat from coastal erosion. It is in this place that Muslim poet Shati (Ilada Pitsuwan) meets artist Fon (Rawipa Srisanguan), who has traveled from Bangkok for an exhibit bringing awareness to the impending environmental disaster. Shati is torn between her religious upbringing and a burgeoning affection for Fon, and faces an inner turmoil reflected in the chaos brought on by the monsoons. Casually melding folklore with modern concerns, director Boontarig employs a magical realist approach to sort through the eternal conflict between faith and identity. (QCinema 2023)

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The Breaking Ice by Anthony Chen – China, Singapore | 2023 – 97 minutes
Singapore’s entry to the 2024 Academy Awards. In the Chinese city of Yanji, near the border to North Korea, tourist Haofeng (Zhou Dongyu), guide Nana (Liu Haoran), and Nana’s friend Xiao explore the snowy city and its environs, and along the way develop feelings for each other as they discover truths about themselves. Inspired by the Nouvelle Vague classic Jules and Jim, Chen filters that film’s central relationships through Asian reserve, spinning a nuanced tale of young people who are not quite equipped to say what it is they really feel. (QCinema 2023)

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Tiger Stripes by Amanda Nell Eu – Malaysia, Taiwan, France, Germany, Netherlands, Singapore, Qatar, Indonesia | 2023 – 95 minutes
12-year old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is going through the challenges of puberty. But there’s something unusual about the changes her body is experiencing. When the community around her discovers what’s happening, Zaffan is shunned and attacked, leaving her no choice but to accept what she is becoming. Amanda Nell Eu makes literal the horrors of adolescence, making potent body horror out of the often horrifying developments of a pubescent transformation. (QCinema 2023)

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Women From Rote Island by Jeremias Nyangoen – Indonesia | 2023 – 106 minutes
In the Southernmost island of Indonesia, Orpha (Merlinda Dessy Adoe) awaits the return of her daughter Martha (Irma Novita Rihi), so that she may finally bury her husband in accordance with local tradition. Martha has been working in Sabah at a palm oil plantation, and is carrying a traumatic burden with her; one that Orpha knows all too well. With a naturalistic approach that highlights the beauty of their rural surroundings, Nyangoen, in his promising debut, brings attention to the plight of women who are simply never seen; too far removed from the public eye to be a part of the greater movement toward gender equality. (QCinema 2023)

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For more information, please visit: https://qcinema.ph/