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Philippines filmmaker Joel Ruiz and producer Maria Madonna Tarrayo are pitching their anthology series “Love at 310” at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (Tccf), bringing an intimate look at relationships through stories set in a Manila love motel.

“All the stories in ‘Love at 310’ are inspired by real stories from people in my life,” says Ruiz, whose previous film “How She Left Me” topped Netflix charts. “What happens between couples when they are naked, when they are completely vulnerable, when there is nowhere to hide?”

The series aims to break new ground in addressing sexuality in Asian media. “Asian culture is very reserved when it comes to sexuality, but it is such a huge part of relationships,” Ruiz notes. “We need to be able to talk about it and embrace it.”

Tarrayo, president and CEO of Philippines production house Uxs, sees the project as filling a gap in current programming. “I...

The Philippines’ Quezon City Film Commission and QCinema have revealed the lineup for the second edition of the QCinema Project Market (Qpm).

Twenty projects were selected from 63 submissions across the Philippines and Southeast Asia. The market aims to connect filmmakers with international partners and offers approximately $300,000 in grants and prizes.

Notable projects from last year’s Qpm have made significant progress. Rafael Manuel’s “Filipiniana” and Woo Ming Jin’s “Fox King” are in post-production, while Duong Dieu Linh’s “Don’t Cry Butterfly” is world premiering at Venice Critics’ Week.

Southeast Asian Projects from the 2024 selection include:

“The Beer Girl in Yangon” – Director: Sein Lyan Tun, Producer: Yulia Evina Bhara. Synopsis: A 17-year-old girl works in a Yangon beer station after her father’s political arrest, navigating love and hallucinations.

“Picturehouse” (Vietnam) – Director: Minh-Nghiem Nguyen-Vo, Producer: Johann Chapelan. Synopsis: In 1960s Vietnam, a family-run movie house becomes a sanctuary for a boy amid war.

When it comes to family drama, the sheer multitude of them makes it hard to distinguish one from the other. While there are certain layers making them distinctive, these are sometimes purely superficial, as the core idea of the family, its identity and the conflicts it has to overcome stay the same, making most of them somewhat redundant or at the very least, repetitive. What sets some of them apart from the rest is how the concept itself comes into question, after a tragedy, for example, setting the foundation for a fundamental alteration of the family itself. It seems this structure is what drives a short feature such as Jhanvi Motla's Mirage, even though its duration makes it tough to say for sure this is what the writer/director was aiming for.

Mirage is screening at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles

After the death of her husband, Nitya...