SEASON 2024-2025
AUGUST 27 - SEPTEMBER 15, 2025
SARA-SINTAS I CLOSING FILMS
INTIMATE CROSSINGS
The Closing Film Program explores the fragile spaces between intimacy and survival, memory and longing. Across moments of collapse, migration, and disconnection, these films reveal how tenderness endures. Through spoken, physical, or imagined rituals, they affirm that even in alienation and decay, human connection persists. Sanctity lives not in spectacle, but in the quiet resilience of care...beyond the fantastic.
Christophe Karabache I 2023 I
Lebanon I 1hr 33min Thriller, Mystery I Arabic w/ English subtitles I Philippine Premiere
Lebanon stands on the brink of collapse. Amid the chaos, Khattar and Anaïs, two unemployed chemists, resort to a desperate, grotesque experiment: surviving by consuming human flesh. But when Anaïs suddenly vanishes, Khattar is drawn into a brutal underworld of human meat trafficking. The grim trade escalates further as he finds himself entangled in a dark operation that trades flesh for advanced digital sniper weapons, blurring the lines between survival, crime, and the country’s descent into madness.
Born in Beirut in 1979, Christophe completed his Cinema Studies at Université Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle (France) and through a joint program at The University of Iowa (USA). He began his exploration of film at l’Etna, an alternative workshop in Paris. He initially made experimental films. His current filmmaking practice shifts between documentary and fiction. His films have been showcased at several international film festivals and theatrically released in France by Visiosfeir Distribution. A documentary about his work is edited on DVD by RE:VOIR (Paris). In 2017, he signed a global distribution deal with SMG (New York). He worked with Dragway Productions in 2018.
Anwar Johari Ho I 2025 I
Malaysia I 23:39 min Drama I
Malay, Korean w/ English subititles I
World Premiere
A Cambodian escort in Kuala Lumpur offers intimacy through stories, slipping between languages to soothe her clients; until a lonely Korean man’s longing for the past forces her to confront the silences in her own story.
Graduating from the University of Reading, UK, Anwar’s thesis short film Forget Me Not garnered accolades at multiple festivals, and his subsequent short, Burung-Burung, premiered at Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (2020), winning the Jury Prize Award at the Mini Film Festival (2021). His next short film, Fish Balls (2024) had its international premiere at the Ngilngig Fantastic Asian Film Festival. He has also directed multiple shorts and web series in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2021.
An alumnus of the inaugural Malaysian Development Lab for Fiction Feature Films (mylab) in 2022, he's now developing his debut feature film.
Pablo Pagán I 2024 I
Spain I 20 min Sci-Fi, Thriller I
Spanish w/ English subititles I
Southeast Asian Premiere
Camila works as a party truck driver. Locked in a draining routine, she has developed a strange obsession with the clientele of the business, looking at them as a reflection of her inability to integrate into society. One night, while cleaning one of the trucks, she discovers a bottle containing some mysterious pills, which after taking them, allowed her to abandon her body and explore the world outside the boundaries of her physical self - a sort of an astral journey. With the help of this newly acquired power, Camila will begin to explore the world beyond the cab of her truck.
Pablo Pagán (Valencia, 2001) is a director, writer, and producer known for his fresh take on genre cinema. At 16, he wrote, directed, and produced Pawns, a crowdfunded short about the Spanish Civil War through Gen Z’s perspective, winning at Cinema Jove and becoming the first Spanish short to claim “Best International Short” at the AAHSFF in New York. He followed with ‘Munna and The Girl with the Blurred Face’, both earning recognition at genre festivals worldwide. A graduate of ESCAC in Barcelona, Pablo’s thesis film Voyager, a neo-noir, female-led fantasy thriller, won multiple awards at major festivals including Screamfest and Filmquest and qualified for the Goya Awards. He has served as a programmer for the Manises International Fantastic Film Festival and a young juror at Giffoni. Pablo is currently developing his first feature, The Whistler.
Ang Huling Liham I The Last Letter
Miguel Reyes Potestades I 2024 I
Philippines I 20 min Drama Fantasy I
Filipino w/ English subititles I
Visayas Premiere
After a fire devastates the Manila Post Office, veteran postman Simon Lirah L. Talaga is among those laid off. Before leaving, he must deliver the last letters in his care. One letter stands out, addressed to someone with his exact name but a different address. Curious, Simon sets out to find his namesake, meeting strangers along the way. Each encounter leads him closer to something he didn’t expect. As the journey unfolds, Simon finds himself drawn into a quiet mystery that blurs the lines between coincidence and fate thereby his final delivery becoming deeply personal.
Miguel is a writer, director, and editor based in the province of Quezon, Philippines. He has worked on various projects, including documentaries, music videos, and short films. In 2023, he underwent an intensive filmmaking workshop held at the Mowelfund Film Institute. His short film “Ang Huling Liham” was selected as one of the top 7 scripts and was awarded a grant by the institution. In 2017, his music video for the song “Naririnig mo ba” by the singer Morissette Amon was nominated for Myx’s Mellow Video of the Year Award. The video had also competed in that year’s Star Music’s Himig Handog Music Video competition. It had also garnered over 11,000,000 views on YouTube. He has been working professionally as a video editor for over 5 years now.