QCinema 2025: One 'film city' to the world

WE'RE IN THE THICK of the bustle of QCinema affairs, a near-Yuletide tradition among Filipino film lovers. The large crowds, the packed concessionaires, the bumper-to-bumper traffic, it's all part of it. If your cortisol levels aren't taking a hit for fear of missing festival screenings, I've been told, you aren't really doing it.

This year marks thirteen years for the festival, but also the first year they're doing it having to live up to the distinction of a UNESCO Creative City of Film (well-deserved). It's been great seeing QCinema steadily realize its vision of putting Filipino filmmaking (and filmgoing) in the world map. And that continues with this year's edition, titled, simply, "QC Film City," an almost-two-week program that showcases interesting Filipino and foreign films to local audiences.

This guide includes everything you need to know if you're planning to partake at QCinema 2025 this year, including the films (with synopses and trailers), a live one-page screening schedule dashboard, and ticketing info.

QCinema 2025: Films in competition

This year, QCinema keeps a stacked program for their competition sections, including Asian Next Wave, RainbowQC (which has its own pride film festival), New Horizons, and QCShorts International.

We've listed every film after the bump.

Asian Next Wave

The fest's flagship competition section, Asian Next Wave highlights great filmmaking from emerging voices and talents in the Philippines and across Asia.

Diamonds in the Sand

dir. Janus Victoria | Drama | 🇯🇵 🇲🇾 🇵🇭

Unwilling to meet the lonely fate of dying alone (or kodokushi), a Japanese man throws caution to the wind to follow a friend in Manila, Philippines.

Family Matters

dir. Ke-yin Pan | Drama | 🇹🇼

On the cusp of major life shifts, Spring searches for her origins before university, Autumn struggles to conceive through artificial insemination, Summer reaches for a distant father ahead of military service, and Winter, their father, fights to change his fate as family pressures intensify.

Ky Nam Inn

dir. Leon Le | Drama, Romance | 🇻🇳

Set in 1985 post-war Vietnam, Khang moves to Saigon after securing a position to translate “The Little Prince.” Due to his family connections, Khang’s life under the new regime is secure. But everything changes when he meets Ky Nam, a reserved older widow who lives in Khang’s new community.

Lost Land

dir. Akio Fujimoto | Drama | 🇯🇵 🇫🇷 🇲🇾 🇩🇪

In the hope of reuniting with their scattered family, four-year-old Shafi and his nine-year-old sister Somira leave a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh on a perilous journey to reach Malaysia.

Luz

dir. Flora Lau | Drama | 🇫🇷 🇭🇰 🇨🇳

In the neon-lit streets of Chongqing, Wei desperately searches for his estranged daughter Fa, while Hong Kong gallerist Ren grapples with her ailing stepmother Sabine in Paris. Their lives collide in a virtual reality world, where a mystical deer reveals hidden truths, sparking a journey of discovery and connection.

Open Endings

dir. Nigel Santos | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 🇵🇭

Four queer women in their 30s who are exes-turned-best-friends navigate adulthood, love, friendship, chosen families, and everything in between.

Renoir

dir. Chie Hayakawa | Drama | 🇯🇵 🇫🇷 🇵🇭 🇸🇬 🇮🇩

In 1987 Tokyo, a quirky and sensitive 11-year-old girl copes with a terminally ill father and stressed-out working mother while encountering various adults dealing with their own struggles.

A Useful Ghost

dir. Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke | Comedy, Horror | 🇹🇭 🇫🇷 🇸🇬 🇩🇪

After dying from a respiratory disease, a mother’s spirit possesses a vacuum cleaner to protect her husband when he begins showing the same symptoms.

The World of Love

dir. Park Joon-ho | Drama, Romance | 🇰🇷

Jooin, a 17-year-old student confused by love, unleashes chaos with some words spoken in a moment of anger. Anonymous notes questioning her actions begin to arrive, altering her quiet life.

RainbowQC

RainbowQC is QCinema’s LGBTQIA+ section, offering stories with queer characters and perspectives that highlight the diversity of experiences in an increasingly complex world.

As noted previously, plans seem to be underway for a standalone festival that happens during Pride season.

• 3670 (dir. Park Joon-ho | 🇰🇷 )
• Bel Ami (dir. Jun Jeng | 🇫🇷 )
• Le Petite Dernière (dir. Hafsia Herzi | 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 )
• The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (dir. Diego Céspedes | 🇨🇱 🇫🇷 🇪🇸 🇧🇪 🇩🇪 )
• En El Camino (dir. David Pablos | 🇲🇽 )
• Skin of Youth (dir. Ash Mayfair | 🇻🇳 🇸🇬 🇺🇸 🇯🇵 )
• Strange River (dir. Jaume Claret Muxart | 🇩🇪 🇪🇸 )
• Summer's Camera (dir. Sung Divine | 🇰🇷 )

Read our coverage of last June's RainbowQC Pride Film Festival:

‘Some Nights I Feel Like Walking’ review — Body of work

Petersen Vargas’ new film finds the aching beauty in found kinship and brotherhood.

UnreelArmando Dela Cruz

New Horizons

New Horizons is a section for feature film directing debuts and second features, offering up a space for filmmakers that made a splash with their first couple of films by offering new visions of what cinema can be.

This year's entries include:

• Amoeba (dir. Siyou Tan | 🇸🇬 🇳🇱 🇪🇸 🇫🇷 🇰🇷 )
• Blue Heron (dir. Sophy Romvari | 🇨🇦 🇭🇺 🇺🇸 )
• Brand New Landscape (dir. Yuiga Danzuka | 🇯🇵 )
• The Chronology of Water (dir. Kristen Stewart | 🇺🇸 🇱🇻 🇫🇷 )
• DJ Ahmet (dir. Georgi M. Unkovski | 🇲🇰 🇨🇿 🇷🇸 🇭🇷 )
• Lucky Lu (dir. Lloyd Lee Choi | 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 )
• Manas (dir. Marianna Brennand Fortes | 🇧🇷 🇵🇹 🇫🇷 🇧🇪 )
• Pangku (dir. Reza Rahadian | 🇮🇩 🇸🇦 )
• The President's Cake (dir. Hasan Hadi | 🇺🇸 )

QCShorts International

QCShorts International is QCinema’s short film competition program that features Southeast Asia’s most exciting voices and storytellers working within the short film format.

There are four different programs, each with its own theme.

Program #1: This Vast Artifice

Named after Eve Driver's poem collection, these shorts showcase how the world is not a wish-granting factory.

• As If To Nothing (dir. Pek Jia Hao, Ang Jia Jun | 🇸🇬 )
• Honey, My Love, So Sweet (dir. JT Trinidad | 🇵🇭 )
• Please P(r)ay Attention (dir. Vasupol Suwanjuta | 🇹🇭 )
• Surface Tension (dir. The Serrano Sisters | 🇵🇭 )
• Yelo (dir. Gab Rosique | 🇵🇭 )

Program #2: The Center Cannot Hold

A short film collection that gives a glimpse of what resistance looks like.

• A Metamorphosis (dir. Lin Htet Aung | 🇲🇲 )
• Hoy, Hoy, Ingat! (dir. Norvin de los Santos | 🇵🇭 )
• Si Kara: Ang Babaye Nga Nag Daba-Daba (dir. Dale | 🇵🇭 )
• Vox Humana (dir. Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan | 🇵🇭 🇺🇸 🇸🇬 )
• When the Blues Goes Marching In (dir. Beny Kristia | 🇮🇩 )

Program #3: This is Where I Leave You

Vanishing homes, forgotten bodies. A program of shorts where the dead keep talking.

• Agapito (dir. Alvin Belarmino, Kyla Danelle Romero | 🇵🇭 🇫🇷 )
• Before the Sea Forgets (dir. Lê Ngoc Duy | 🇸🇬 )
• Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites (dir. Chheangkea | 🇰🇭 🇫🇷 🇺🇸 )
• Sammi, Who Can Detach His Body Parts (dir. Rein Maycheaelson | 🇮🇩 )
• Visiting Heaven Gate (dir. Nghiêm Quỳnh Trang | 🇻🇳 🇨🇿 )

Program #4: We Were Once Small Things

• Baby Fat (dir. Margarita Mina | 🇵🇭 🇺🇸 )
• In The Valley (dir. Lim Han Loong | 🇲🇾 )
• Little Rebels Cinema Club (dir. Khozy Rizal | 🇮🇩 )
• My Plastic Mother (dir. Amar Haikal | 🇮🇩 )
• Ours Was A Timeless Night Burning (dir. Lauviah Caliboso | 🇵🇭 )
• Runo! (dir. Racquel “Lysa” Catolico, Jazmine Gin Pateña | 🇵🇭 )

QCinema 2025: Films in exhibition

In addition to the in-competition films, QCinema will also program a handful of selections for exhibition. This includes festival faves like Screen International and Before Midnight.

Screen International

Award winning, critically acclaimed films from all over the world. Screen International gives QCinema attendees a chance to catch the most talked about films of the year among cinephile circles.

• Couture (dir. Alice Winocour | 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 )
• Divine Comedy (dir. Ali Asgari | 🇮🇷 🇮🇹 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇹🇷 )
• Father Mother Sister Brother (dir. Jim Jarmusch | 🇫🇷 🇮🇪 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 )
• Hamnet (dir. Chloe Zhao | 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 )
• The History of Sound (dir. Oliver Hermanus | 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇸🇪 )
• Little Amélie or The Character of Rain (dir. Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Jin Kuang | 🇫🇷 )
• The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt | 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 )
• Once Upon a Time in Gaza (dir. Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser | 🇫🇷 🇵🇹 🇵🇸 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 )
• The Portuguese House (dir. Avelina Prat | 🇪🇸 🇵🇹 )
• Sirāt (dir. Olivier Laxe | 🇪🇸 🇫🇷 🇲🇦 )
• The Things You Kill (dir. Alireza Khatami | 🇨🇦 🇫🇷 🇵🇱 🇹🇷 🇸🇬 )

Before Midnight

Tales of the fantastic, of the supernatural, and everything else that rises as night falls on humanity.

• The Gardens of Earthly Delights (dir. Morgan Knibbe | 🇳🇱 🇵🇭 🇧🇪 )
• Rabbit Trap (dir. Bryn Chainey | 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 )
• The Ugly Stepsister (dir. Emilie Kristine Blichfeldt | 🇩🇰 🇳🇴 🇵🇱 🇸🇪 )

QC Selects

A selection of exciting new films for cinema lovers of all stripes.

• Call My Manager (dir. Erik Matti | 🇵🇭 )
• Human Resource (dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit | 🇹🇭 )
• The Kings of the World (dir. Laura Mora | 🇵🇭 )
• Lakambini, Gregoria De Jesus (dir. Arjanmar Rebeta, Jeffrey Jeturian | 🇨🇴 🇫🇷 🇱🇺 🇲🇽 🇳🇴 )
• Rental Family (dir. Hikari | 🇺🇸 )
• The Richest Woman in the World (dir. Thierry Klifa | 🇫🇷 🇧🇪 )
• Shadow Transit (dir. Pedring Lopez | 🇵🇭 🇭🇰 🇨🇦 )

QCShorts Expo

QCShorts Expo is an an exhibition program featuring some of the best short films made outside of Southeast Asia by the world’s most exciting auteurs and emerging filmmakers.

There are two programs, and like QCShorts International, each program is themed.

QCShorts Expo Program 1: Unthinkable Atrocities

Collected under a program titled Unthinkable Atrocities, these new works in the second edition of Shorts Expo come from emerging auteurs redefining how cinema confronts the indescribably horrific—from Lovecraftian horrors and folkloric curses to intense censorship and real-world genocide.

• A Very Straight Neck (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 )
• An Orange from Jaffa (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇵🇸 🇵🇱 )
• God Is Shy (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇫🇷 )
• Nang Norn (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇺🇸 🇱🇦 🇹🇭 )
• Razeh-del (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇮🇷 🇬🇧 🇮🇹 )
• We Were the Scenery (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 )

QCShorts Expo Program 1: Unthinkable Atrocities

All developed within the QCShorts grant, the Filipino shorts under Unhealthy Fixations tackle obsessions with parental failure, childhood trauma, the surveillance state, climate change, workplace equity, and bodily insecurities. From childhood dramas and body horror to post-apocalyptic romcoms and heist films, the shorts in this program map the never-ending lengths we will go through to attain the object of our desires.

• Refrain (dir. Joseph Dominic Cruz | 🇵🇭 )
• Alaga (dir. Nicole Rosacay | 🇵🇭 )
• Rampage! (O ang Parada) (dir. Kukay Bautista Zinampan | 🇵🇭 )
• Water Sports (dir. Whammy Alcazaren | 🇵🇭 🇰🇷 🇧🇩 )
• Kinausap ni Celso ang Diyos (dir. Gilb Baldoza | 🇵🇭 )
• Supermassive Heavenly Body (dir. Sam Villa-Real | 🇵🇭 )

Rediscovery

A selection of landmark films from cinema’s vast and colorful history, digitally restored and handpicked by the artistic director of QCinema.

• Almost Famous (dir. Cameron Crowe | 🇺🇸 )
• Linda Linda Linda (dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita | 🇯🇵 )
• Showgirls (dir. Paul Verhoeven | 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 )

Dokyu Days

A selection of documentaries, highlighting true stories from all over the world.

• Tens Across the Borders (dir. Chan Sze-wei | 🇵🇭 🇸🇬 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 )
• 2000 Meters to Andriivka (dir. Mstyslav Chernov | 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 )
• Below the Clouds (dir. Gianfranco Rosi | 🇮🇹 )
• The Road to Sydney (dir. Benito Bautista | 🇵🇭 )
• The Treasure Hunter (dir. Giacomo Gex | 🇬🇧 🇵🇭 )
• The Voice of Hind Rajab (dir. Kaouther Ben Hania | 🇫🇷 🇹🇳 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇨🇾 🇸🇦 🇮🇹 )

Focus On: Sandra Hüller

A showcase focusing on Sandra Hüller, spotlighting the extraordinary range of the acclaimed German actress.

• Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet | 🇫🇷 )
• Requiem (dir. Hans-Christian Schmid |🇩🇪 )
• Toni Ardmann (dir. Jonathan Glazer | 🇦🇹 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇷🇴 )
• Two to One (dir. Maren Ade | 🇩🇪 )
• The Zone of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer | 🇵🇱 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 )

QCinema 2025 screening schedules

QCinema 2025 happens from November 14 to 23, 2025. They've posted the screening schedule on their website, we've screen-grabbed that schedule and pasted it on here so you can view it at one glance.

If in case you can't view it on-the-go on your mobile phones and wanted a ready-to-view document, here's a downloadable PDF.

We also took it upon ourselves to make a nicer browsing experience for all of you plotting your festival itineraries. We built a full Notion database complete with all the details of the films for easier browsing.

Here's a preview of what it looks like:

Access the Notion dashboard by clicking the button below.

QCinema 2025 venues & ticket info

Like in previous years, QCinema 2025 is happening across different theaters in the city, with the most number of theaters screening the films in Gateway Mall in Cubao, Quezon City. The participating theaters include:

• Gateway Cineplex 18, Cinema 11
• Gateway Cineplex 18, Cinema 12
• Gateway Cineplex 18, Cinema 16
• Gateway Cineplex 18, Cinema 18
• AyalaMalls Cinemas Trinoma, Cinema 3
• AyalaMalls Cinema Cloverleaf, Cinema 2
• Robinsons Movieworld Galleria, Cinema 3
• Eastwood Cinemas, Cinema 1
• Fisher Mall Cinemas, Cinema 3

As for tickets, patrons will be pleased to know that QCinema sells tickets at PHP 251 pesos only. Prices can obviously change per theater, but this is what it goes for at least in Gateway.

There's also the QCinephile Festival Badge, a festival pass that comes with screening credit denominations of five, ten, or fifteen films. It also gives you access to "good seats" which are certain rows with optimal viewing angles as well as limited-time advanced online booking. This badge also comes with free QCinema merch. QCinema's QCinephile Festival Badge will set you back from PHP 1,250 to PHP 3,750, depending on the number of credits you want. As of press time, this badge is sold out.