Joel Saracho

Joel Saracho

Profile

Joel Saracho

Movies

GomBurZa
Padre Francisco Campmas
A powerful and moving historical drama that tells the courageous story of three Filipino Catholic priests: Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora.
The Baseball Player
A Moro child soldier aspires to become a baseball player amidst an all-out war.
Trigger
A young soldier comes home after a siege and faces a different war.
The ExorSIS
Mang Ruben
The film follows Gina, who must find an exorcist after her younger sister gets possessed by a dead woman’s spirit.
Out of Body
Elle, a young model new to the industry, arrives to the set of her first commercial job to discover that the initial idea was scrapped. A mysterious new concept has been developed, but the crew and director keep forgetting to let her know what it is. However, after an afternoon of tight costume fittings, rough prop work, and meetings with creepy producers, Elle begins to suspect something else might be afoot.
Genus Pan
Taking leave from their jobs at a gold mine, three workers journey to their home village on foot through the spectacular yet unforgiving wilderness of the mythical island of Hugaw. As time passes and their conversations intensify, buried histories emerge and a sense of psychosis invades the scene. As ever, Lav Diaz’s exquisitely subdued black-and-white images and patient rhythm lend a Brechtian register to the drama; almost always filmed from the same fixed distance, each scene is an immaculate tableau vivant. Behind the film’s folkloric façade, Diaz once again taps into the collective memory of defiant struggles against the tyranny of both contemporary Filipino society and colonial brutality, centred on the timeless image of men walking – one of the key traits of Pan.
Dama de Noche
Daisy Resurrection, an overseas Filipino worker, comes home from years of working broad, but her homecoming is unlike any other OFW story you’ve heard of.
New Queer Visions: Seeing is Believing
In a world where men hide their true love and feelings, where a mother turns a blind eye to her son's identity, and where religion dictates that a man may only lie with a woman — is everything we see truly what it seems to be? The latest release from New Queer Visions takes a look at representations of boys and men, how desires are hidden from those around them, and how self-belief conquers doubt. The short films are: Adult (2017); Hello, Stranger [Dag vreemde man] (2016); Little Potato (2017); Juan Gabriel is Dead [Se murió Juan Gabriel] (2018); The Guest [Le convive] (2017); Contestant #4 (2016).
Lola Igna
Mang Rene
Lola Igna is a foul-mouthed and stubborn woman who is eager to die but her neighbors are hung up on her winning "the oldest living grandmother in the world." Her long-lost great-great-grandson, Tim, is an aspiring vlogger who wants to latch on her now-famous grandma but ends up giving her a new reason to live.
The Woman in the Septic Tank 3: The Real Untold Story of Josephine Bracken
Mother Jewel
“Sequel na, series pa? It’s just a suggestion.” Watch as Eugene Domingo comes full circle as she completes the saga in this third installment of Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank. Witness her in a new light as she tells the real untold story of Josephine Bracken in this iWant original series.
The Halt
Mailman
It is the year 2034 AD and Southeast Asia has been in the dark for the last three years, literally, because the sun hasn’t shone as a result of massive volcanic eruptions at the Celebes Sea in 2031. Madmen control countries, communities, enclaves and bubble cities. Cataclysmic epidemics razed over the continent. Millions have died and millions have left.
Heaven's Waiting
Tagasuri
Lisang’s soul is trapped in purgatory due to her bad behavior. Once again, her name is picked and reconsidered. Will she be able to make it this time?
Nakalimutan Ko Nang Kalimutan Ka
Bangkero
A romantic comedy story on how to move on with heartaches and painful memories. A tale full of tears and laughter as Jaz Cruz deals with different stages of moving on.
Signal Rock
Intoy was left to take care of his parents when his sister Vicky leaves to work overseas. Eventually, like many women in the island, Vicky married a foreigner thinking it will solve all her family’s problems. Living in a remote area, Intoy can only get in touch with his sister by scrambling atop strange rock formations on the island.
Liway
Mang Roger
The true story of a young mother who uses story-telling to protect her child from the reality of growing up in prison and the difficult life she endured.
BuyBust
Good Samaritan
A special forces team is sent to snuff out a drug den, but find themselves trapped inside it after being set-up and betrayed.
Season of the Devil
Ahas
In the late 70s, a gang of militias under the control of the military, terrorizes a remote village in the Philippines. The poet/teacher/activist, Hugo Haniway, decides to find out the truth about the disappearance of his wife. A love story set in the darkest period of Philippine history, the Marcos Dictatorship. Based on real events and real characters.
Drunkaraoke
Drunken customers of a small bar end up fighting over a song in the karaoke machine.
Doors: Team B Terror
A nightmare of a basketball team during their stay at an old dormitory.
Bomba
Kuya Rod
Pipo makes ends meet by taking on the toughest jobs. Life is more difficult because he’s deaf. He supports himself and his teenage lover Cyril. His irate boss is getting difficult and Ben, his childhood friend wants his daughter Cyril back. Like a bomb, Pipo’s ticking to explode, anytime soon.
Instalado
A social science fiction set in a farming village in the not-so-distant future. Victor lives in a time when the dominant form of education is through installation, a process wherein bodies of knowledge can be installed directly into people's brains using technology owned by big corporations. However, like many others in the agricultural town of Porac, Victor cannot afford the sky-high cost of installation; which he believes is the key to escape his rural life. To raise money for installation, Victor abandons farming and works as the housekeep of a wealthy childhood friend who has become extremely successful after undergoing a series of installations.
Ilawod
A story of a family's breakdown in the midst of a demonic attack. Dennis, a reporter, accidentally invites the ilawod which is a water spirit into his home where it attaches to his son, Ben.
2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten
Mr. Pangan
Felix is a friendless achiever in high school whose life changes after the arrival of the half-American Snyder brothers, entangling him in their dark ambitions.
Contestant #4
A young boy frequently visits an old man who lives alone, keeping him always in good company. One night, he chances upon the old man watching a dated clip of himself as a cross-dressing boy. This sparks within the young boy an interest to find out more about the old man's past. What he ultimately discovers aids both him and the old man towards a richer understanding of how the weight of life and identity should be carried.
Singing in Graveyards
Joey Smith fan
Pepe, a 68-year-old impersonator of a Filipino rock legend, lives alone on the borders of reality, imagination and mysticism. One day, he is finally given the chance to open for the rock legend’s concert but he must do something neither of them has done before – write a love song.
Tibak
The film is based on the progressive and nationalist youth organization “Kabataang Makabayan” (KM), founded in 1964. Kabataang Makabayan was led and co-founded by Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, four years before they also reestablished the Communist Party of the Philippines
Pektus
The story of a day in the lives of two men in the city -both proud, indifferent, and bound by the confines of their milieu and their choices in life- and their incidental yet preordained meeting in a one-way alley that would change their lives thereafter. Raising questions of how far people have control over what happens in their lives, the film seeks to explore circumstance versus choice, breaking points, and second chances.
Paglipay
An Aeta from Baytan village in Zambales makes a living from cutting down and burning of trees and hunting on the foothills of Mt. Pinatubo.
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery
Mang Karyo
Andrés Bonifacio is celebrated as the father of the Philippines Revolution against Spanish colonial rule. This eight-hour epic examines this myth, undertaking an expedition into history through various interwoven narrative threads, held together by an exploration of the individual’s role in history.
Tandem
Elmer
In the traffic-laden streets of Metro Manila, two brothers use the chaos of the city roads as a smokescreen for their shady occupation tandem robbers on motorbike. But when a robbery goes sour, the brothers are forced to graduate from low level thieves to high profile hit men in an act that tests both their resolve and their relationship.
Mga Kwentong Tsubibo
Mga Kwentong Tsubibo revolves around the individual stories of 8 strangers: a frustrated medical student on the verge of quitting her studies; a dewy-eyed boy who, pressed by poverty and desperation, searches for medicine for his ailing grandmother; a well-loved city mayor whose critically-ill son urgently needs a kidney transplant; a young, engaged couple planning their future together; and an older couple in a fishing village scrambling to raise money for the medical bills of their hospitalized son. The film offers a critical look at the social determinants of health, and how they affect the lives of Filipinos.
Salvage
Bong
A news team investigating rumors of aswang killings in a remote barrio are attacked by a group of soldiers, forcing them to run for their lives in the deeps of the forest, where more mystery and danger lay in wait.
Matangtubig
A story of how a violent crime disrupts a quaint rural town in Batangas. A girl’s dead body is discovered and puts the whole town on trial while the former’s companion remains missing. The ensuing media spectacle slowly exposes the town’s secrets. As they celebrate its yearly festival by the lake, an unknowing sleeping evil unravels and haunts the townsfolk.
Portraits of Mosquito Press
Himself
The documentary about the history and struggle for Press Freedom of Mosquito Press during the dark days of Marcos dictatorship.
Feng Shui 2
News Reporter
It focuses on Lester who, upon getting the cursed bagua, starts to get all the luck and prosperity he could get in his life, but with deadly consequences.
Pride and Honor
When the people of Maratabat finally realize that their time under the corrupt politician clan of the Abubakars has to come to an end— a series of violent acts occur one after another. The people rally behind another clan –the Mahardikas – to end the violence and place a new leader in their region. Will the Mahardikas choose a path of violence or peace? Will it be for honor or will it be for pride?
Trophy Wife
Nong
A woman falls in love with a man, but is wronged by him and his brother. She then tries to exact revenge on him, his brother and his new lover.
From What Is Before
Father Guido
The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.
Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay
Chairman Boy English Resuello
A professional horror movie extra prepares for her first ever acting award nomination.
The Healing
Swimming Coach
A community rushes to a faith healer after learning that one of them was miraculously healed from a deadly disease by the same person. They are torn apart afterwards as the healing brings them a terrible curse that wreaks harm and death.
My Valentine Girls
Bernie (segment "BBF")
The Valentine offering starts with a loveless bespectacled author pondering over possible themes for his trilogy of love stories. He gets a ribbing from his precocious little sister for wasting too much time writing on the computer.
Macho Dancer
Boy
Abandoned by his American lover, a handsome teenager from the mountains journeys to Manila in an effort to support his family. With a popular call boy as his mentor, Paul enters the glittering world of male strippers, prostitution, drugs, sexual slavery, police corruption and murder. Teeming with sex and Asian beefcake, Macho Dancer is a searing indictment of the hypocrisy and police corruption rampant under both the Marcos and Aquino regimes.