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It’s hard to encapsulate the half-sunny, half-funeral vibe of “Leonor Will Never Die”, a touching end-of-life drama that’s also a loving homage to kitschy Filipino action cinema. Writer-director Martika Ramirez Escobar pays tribute to her title character, a fictional Pinoy genre filmmaker who, at the end of her life, wakes up inside one of her unproduced screenplays.

Escobar’s debut feature frequently shifts between sad, dimly lit conversations with Leonor (Sheila Francisco) and her concerned loved ones, particularly her adult son Rudie (Bong Cabrera), and scenes within “Return of the Owl,” Leonor’s unfinished dream project, which follows the generic adventures of tough guy construction worker Ronwaldo (Rocky Salumbides).

Some psychedelic transitions, including trippy dream sequences and photo montages, help to establish the slippery nature of Leonor’s subjective reality. A few sequences from “Return of the Owl” also seem credible, but even they ultimately feel monotonous and...

Films about filmmakers, both real and fictional, are all the rage right now. From Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Bardo” to Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” the fall movie season features some of Hollywood’s biggest directors releasing movies about the journeys that their profession has taken them on. The films cover a wide range of genres, from stark realism to the very weird, but few are as unique as “Leonor Will Never Die.”

Martika Ramirez Escobar’s feature directorial debut, which won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Innovative Spirit at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival before screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and Fantastic Fest, blurs the lines between fiction and reality while honoring the rich history of Filipino action cinema. The movie tells the story of a retired filmmaker who ends up as a character in her own unfinished screenplay after a falling television hits her on...