A farmer forced from his land, a Filipino worker confronting death in Japan and a provincial student saving coins for college are among the characters taking center stage at the 2026 Puregold CinePanalo Film Festival.
Now in its third edition,, the festival is presenting 26 competing original works—seven full-length films and 19 student shorts—from September 23 to October 4.
Beyond its recognizable actors and established directors, this year’s lineup offers a window into the concerns of emerging Filipino filmmakers. Its stories move through cities and rural communities while examining grief, poverty, migration, faith, sexuality, family conflict and the struggle to belong.
Familiar talents take on different stories
The full-length category brings together experienced filmmakers, young directors and familiar screen personalities across comedy, romance, fantasy, horror, and drama.
Thop Nazareno’s Apol of My Ai, starring Zanjoe Marudo, Zion Cruz and Rochelle Pangilinan, follows a boy whose feelings for his choir teacher develop as his relationship with his father begins to fracture.
John Arcilla leads Lawrence Fajardo’s Beast, about a farmer and his carabao who travel to Manila following a final harvest demanded by a landlord. The film combines rural hardship and displacement with elements of fantasy.
Set in Japan, BC Amparado’s Mono No Aware stars Juan Karlos Labajo and Perry Dizon. It follows a Filipino who cleans homes where people have died alone and encounters an elderly widower seeking one final favor.
Rodina Singh’s Multwoh (Patay na Patay Sa’yo), starring Sassa Gurl and Joao Constancia, uses comedy and the supernatural to tell the story of a queer college student who returns as a ghost to express a love left unspoken.
Carl Joseph Papa and Ian Pangilinan co-direct Patay Gutom, featuring Khalil Ramos, Pangilinan, Agot Isidro and Cris Villanueva. Its story begins when a reclusive man eats food intended as an offering and inadvertently opens his third eye.
Mikko Baldoza’s Stuck on You, led by Xyriel Manabat and River Joseph, combines romance and danger as a manicurist mistakenly accepts an assignment intended for a contract killer.
Completing the feature lineup is Joseph Abello’s Wantawsan, starring Joross Gamboa, Rita Daniela and Zion Cruz. The film follows a financially struggling father whose attempt to buy food for his son’s birthday becomes entangled with money received from a newly elected mayor.
The seven films use recognizable genres while drawing from experiences such as rural displacement, overseas work, economic insecurity and queer love.
Student filmmakers widen the map
The 19 student shorts expand the festival’s social and geographic range.
In Kun Hain, Bisan Diin, a young lawyer returns to Samar to search for her estranged activist mother before her wedding. When Heaven Inched Towards Earth follows a farm boy and a sacristan in a Catholic high school in Bulacan, while Alumahan is set in a provincial fishing community.
Migration anchors Bumtak Sara ti Nuangen, about a young woman preparing to become her town’s first overseas Filipino worker.
Other entries focus on economic and institutional struggles. Tingi follows a graduating student who saves earnings from a sari-sari store for college. Ang Huling Banlaw ni Susan centers on a laundry worker whose imagined world begins to overtake her reality.
In Nakabinbin, a widowed father trying to bury his daughter discovers that the absence of a birth record creates a legal obstacle to obtaining her death certificate.
The student lineup also gives space to stories about gender, memory and identity. Sa Mga Nagdaan at Lumipas connects a queer archivist’s personal loss with footage of the Philippines’ first Pride March in 1994. Miss Intrams follows a transmasculine college student who joins a campus pageant while questioning what the experience means for their identity.
These films suggest that regional representation involves more than changing a story’s location. Communities, livelihoods, languages and local realities become part of the narratives themselves.
Funding films—and helping audiences find them
Producing a film remains difficult for young and independent filmmakers, particularly those without established studio support.
For its 2026 edition, CinePanalo offered production grants of P5 million to each of seven full-length projects and P200,000 to each of 20 initially selected student filmmakers, according to reports announcing the program. The current competition lineup contains 19 student shorts selected from that original group.
The grants allow filmmakers to move their stories from proposals into completed productions. But financing is only one part of the challenge. Films also need screens and audiences if they are to develop lives beyond their festival premieres.
This year, the festival is extending its theatrical reach through screenings at Gateway Cineplex 18, TriNoma, Fairview Terraces, Ayala Malls Feliz, Ayala Malls Circuit, Ayala Malls Manila Bay and Market! Market.
The expanded circuit provides audiences in several parts of Metro Manila with more opportunities to see the entries, although regional screenings outside the capital would further improve access to films carrying stories from across the country.
A separate Panorama Shorts section will also screen 10 previously completed Filipino short films, each receiving its national premiere during the festival.
Stories waiting to be seen
The significance of CinePanalo 2026 will not be determined solely by its funding, celebrity presence or number of entries. Its longer-term value will depend on whether its filmmakers secure further screenings and opportunities—and whether audiences are willing to discover work by people whose names they may not yet recognize.
The festival’s lineup demonstrates that compelling Filipino stories can emerge from fishing ports, sari-sari stores, provincial schools, overseas workplaces and families navigating difficult choices.
The platform has helped bring these stories to the screen. The next challenge is ensuring that they continue to be seen after the festival ends.
Regular tickets cost P250, while discounted admission is P200 for qualified students, senior citizens, persons with disabilities, national athletes and eligible loyalty-card members. A festival pass costs P2,000.