Ghosts, a carabao road trip, a lovesick manicurist-turned-hitman and Juan Karlos confronting death in Japan: this year’s festival isn’t asking Filipino filmmakers to play it safe.
A farmer takes his carabao to Manila in pursuit of a memory. A manicurist accidentally takes a hitman’s job. Someone eats food meant for a ghost and opens his third eye. Another dies, returns as a ghost and still has unfinished romantic business.
Welcome to CinePanalo 2026, where Filipino cinema is getting wonderfully unpredictable.
The third Puregold CinePanalo Film Festival has assembled seven full-length movies spanning romance, crime, magical realism, family drama and the supernatural. This year, organizers dropped the prescribed theme used in previous editions, giving filmmakers greater freedom to choose their stories and genres.
The result is a lineup that doesn’t particularly care about fitting neatly into one box.
John Arcilla, a carabao and a road to Manila
In Lawrence Fajardo’s Beast, John Arcilla plays a farmer forced into a final harvest before heading to Manila with his loyal carabao, pursuing the memory of a niece lost to the passing years. It’s a distinctly Filipino premise mixing rural hardship, grief and magical realism.
Mono No Aware takes the Filipino experience to Japan. Juan Karlos Labajo stars with Perry Dizon in BC Amparado’s drama about a Filipino kodokushi cleaner—a worker who handles homes where people have died alone—whose encounter with an elderly widower develops into a story about death, family and impermanence.
Filipino cinema still loves Iis Ghosts
CinePanalo also leans enthusiastically into the supernatural.
In Patay Gutom, co-directed by Carl Joseph Papa and Ian Pangilinan, a withdrawn man eats an offering intended for a ghost and accidentally opens his third eye. Khalil Ramos and Pangilinan lead the film alongside Agot Isidro and Cris Villanueva.
Then there’s Rodina Singh’s Multwoh (Patay Na Patay Sa’yo), starring Sassa Gurl as a queer college student who dies and returns as a ghost with one deeply human piece of unfinished business: confessing her feelings. Joao Constancia co-stars.
Both films use ghosts for something beyond scares, turning the supernatural into a way of exploring love, loneliness and emotions left unsaid.
Xyriel Manabat gets the wildest job offer
Stuck on You may have the festival’s easiest elevator pitch: a manicurist accidentally becomes a hitman.
Xyriel Manabat plays the heartbroken manicurist whose mistaken job acceptance drags her into a conspiracy and ultimately forces her to choose between protecting her family and the man she loves. Mikko Baldoza directs, with River Joseph co-starring.
It’s strange, immediate and exactly the kind of premise capable of making someone stop scrolling and ask: Wait, what?
Fathers, sons and a thousand pesos
Not every CinePanalo entry requires ghosts or assassins.
Thop Nazareno’s Apol of My Ai, starring Zanjoe Marudo, Rochelle Pangilinan and Zion Cruz, begins with a boy’s crush on his choir teacher before developing into a more complicated story about his relationship with his father.
Joseph Abello’s Wantawsan, meanwhile, follows a cash-strapped father played by Joross Gamboa who receives money from the newly elected mayor he supported and sets out to buy food for his son’s birthday. What begins as a simple errand becomes a test of resourcefulness and values. Rita Daniela and Zion Cruz also star.
Seven films, seven different ideas
Beyond its celebrity-heavy casts, CinePanalo is also investing in the filmmakers themselves. Each of the seven feature projects received a P5-million production grant, while 19 student shorts are also part of this year’s festival.
Taken together, the lineup makes a compelling argument that there doesn’t need to be one template for a “Filipino movie.”
A Filipino story can unfold on a farm, in Manila or in Japan. It can follow a father trying to stretch his money, a queer student with an unspoken confession, a farmer and his carabao—or a man who discovers, much too late, that he probably shouldn’t have eaten a ghost’s food.
The common denominator isn’t genre. It’s perspective.
CinePanalo 2026 runs from September 23 to October 4 at Gateway Cineplex 18, TriNoma, Fairview Terraces, Market! Market!, Ayala Malls Feliz, Ayala Malls Circuit and Ayala Malls Manila Bay. Regular tickets are priced at P250, with discounted admission at P200 for qualified moviegoers.
This year, CinePanalo’s pitch is refreshingly simple: Filipino filmmakers were given room to tell different stories—and they clearly didn’t play it safe.