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Exclusive: Anima, the Filipino studio behind Venice winner On The Job 2: The Missing 8 and Sundance winner Leonor Will Never Die, is joining with Project 8 Projects to co-produce Antoinette Jadaone’s teenage pregnancy drama Sunshine.

Maris Racal stars in the film, marking her third collaboration with Jadaone. The story follows a young gymnast who discovers she is pregnant on the week of the national team tryouts. On her way to a seller of illegal abortion drugs, she meets a mysterious girl who eerily talks and thinks like her.

Currently in post-production, the film is a follow-up to Jadaone’s Fan Girl (2020), which played at Tokyo International Film Festival and Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival main competition.

Jadaone is known for both indie and mainstream films in the Philippines. She directed one of the highest-grossing indie films in Philippine cinema history, That Thing Called Tadhana (2014), which also played widely at...

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

This week, we go to the Philippines and take a look at a time-traveling romance film. Rewind has has become the highest-grossing Filipino film in history, with audiences lapping up the fantasy and mystical elements of a failing marriage given a second chance by divine intervention.

Name: Rewind

Country: The Philippines

Producer: Abs-cbn/Star Cinema, AgostoDos Pictures, Apt Entertainment

International sales: Star Cinema

Distribution: Cinemas in Asia, Australia, Canada, U.S. (limited), Middle East

For fans of: A Change of Heart (Tanging...

A film about the impact of divine intervention on a failing relationship has become the first Filipino title to surpass $16M at the global box office.

Rewind crossed the the 900M Philippine pesos worldwide gross mark this week, a huge return for the local box office. The local record was previously held by Hello, Love, Goodbye (2019), which grossed 691M pesos.

Anchored by the star power of real-life husband-and-wife Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera, as well as buzz generated by word-of-mouth, the time-traveling romance film also broke the domestic box office record after grossing 848M pesos.

Directed by Mae Cruz Alviar, Rewind tells the story of the deteriorating relationship between married couple John (Dantes) and Mary (Rivera). After a divine intervention, John receives an opportunity to go back in time and make amends.

“We at Star Cinema knew that there was no other option but the two of them, because we...

With its lay of claim on the corniest of the many corny verses in the 1979 Styx hit Babe to christen its latest film, Star Cinema kills any existing expectation for anything else than unabashed mushiness from this film. Babe, I Love You, helmed by T.V. soap director Mae Czarina Cruz, tells the story of Nico Veneracion (Sam Milby), an architecture professor from an affluent family who unwittingly at first, but after a series of perspective-changing experiences, freely falls for Sasa Sanchez (Anne Curtis), a boisterous yet charming promo-girl. This derivative rich boy-poor girl romance gets the job of providing slight and momentary pleasures done without even trying, especially since the film has in its disposal the ingenious pairing of two impossibly good-looking real life ex-lovers who are currently two of the most bankable entertainers in the country.

It is therefore inevitable that much of the film is spent in...