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It may not seem like the most obvious choice for a Christmas movie – a brutal action film with a protagonist traumatized by a failed mission in the jungle – but Triggered (Topakk) is one of the ten films selected for this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival (Mmff) and is opening across the Philippines on December 25.

Starring Arjo Atayde and Julia Montes, the Tagalog-language film had its world premiere at Locarno film festival in 2023 and has been touring other festivals over the past year. Atayde plays a former special forces operative, now working as a security guard and struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (Ptsd), who tries to save a woman being pursued by corrupt police and a vicious drugs cartel.

“Filipino families tend to go out together over the holidays, but I guess this is one for the dads and their sons, while the mums and daughters go to watch a romcom,...

The next film by leading Asian director Brillante Mendoza and the directorial debut of New York Asian Film Festival director Samuel Jamier adorn the 2025 production slate of Philippines label Fire and Ice Media.

The company is headed by Liza Diño-Seguerra, a former actor and previous head of the Film Development Council of the Philippines. The company’s recent collaborations include a minority stake in Nicole Midori Woodford’s “Last Shadow at First Light” that premiered at the San Sebastian festival, and co-production “Blue Imagine,” by Urara Matsubayashi which had its world premiere at the Rotterdam festival.

Mendoza’s project “Cocoon” is a story inspired by the director’s relationship with his daughter and was written by Rocky Fajardo and Angel Mendoza. The film follows a Philippines American veterinarian and her African American fiancé as they navigate the intersections of family, culture, and identity. French producer Raphael Gindre, known for “Funny Birds” and “We the Coyotes,...

Exclusive: Venice Critics’ Week title Don’t Cry Butterfly has been boarded by Cj Cgv Vietnam for distribution in Vietnam.

Affiliated with Korea’s Cj Group, Cj Cgv Vietnam also distributed the Vietnamese-language Camera d’Or winner Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell last year.

Don’t Cry Butterfly follows a 45-year old housewife, Tam, who learns through live TV that her husband is having an affair. Turning to mystical means, she then attempts to voodoo her husband back into love.

The debut feature by Duong Dieu Linh will have its world premiere at the Venice Critics’ Week on September 3 before arriving at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10.

Don’t Cry Butterfly is a Vietnam-Singapore-Indonesia-Philippines co-production. Korea’s Barunson E&a picked up world sales rights to the title ahead of the Cannes market this year.

“The idea for this feature started 10 years ago, when I came back to Vietnam to make my first short film,...

Vietnamese cinema’s profile has been on the rise at major international film festivals of late. Debut director Phạm Thiên Ân won Cannes’ Caméra d’Or prize in 2023 with his meditative drama Inside the Yellow Cacoon Shell, and Trương Minh Quý brought the country back to the French festival this year with the well-received romantic drama Viet and Nam. Next up, the 81st Venice Film Festival, opening Aug. 28, will add a strong female voice to this budding Vietnamese new wave with the premiere of Don’t Cry, Butterfly, directed by another first-timer, Dương Diệu Linh.

A metaphysical drama (see its first trailer, below), the new film follows Tam (Lê Tú Oanh), a diligent middle-aged wedding venue worker who learns that her husband has been cheating on her when a live TV broadcast of a soccer match catches him on camera in the stands with his mistress. Determined to win back her...

Marianne Metivier’s debut feature “The Splendour of Life” (“Une splendeur de vivre”) is set to start principal photography at locations across Canada and the Philippines, the producers revealed at the Cannes Film Festival.

The ensemble cast includes Camille Rutherford (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Garance Marillier (“Raw”), Sue Prado (“Your Mother’s Son”), Kyrie Samodio (“Hito”) and Amaryllis Tremblay (“Genesis”).

Set against a lush countryside backdrop, Marie (Rutherford) questions her relationship, while Noée (Marillier) grieves her father. In a stifling Montreal, Eva (Kyrie Samodio) searches for stability as Jeanne (Tremblay) plans her departure.

Canadian-Filipino Metivier won acclaim for her short “She Who Wears the Rain” that was selected for the Berlinale Short Film Competition in 2020.

Geneviève Gosselin-g. of Canada’s Le Foyer Films, known for “Richelieu”, partners with Alexa Rivero of France’s Altamar Films (Venice 2021 winner “The Great Movement”) and Wilfredo Manalang of the Philippines’ Fusee Media (Cannes 2022 winner “Plan 75”), as producers.

Stars: Arjo Atayde, Julia Montes, Sid Lucero, Kokoy De Santos, Vin Abrenica, Gerard Acao, Rosh Barman, Kayley Carrigan, Enchong Dee | Written by Jim Flores, Will Fredo, Richard Somes | Directed by Richard Somes

A Special Forces operative suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder is discharged from the army due to his extreme medical condition. Finding employment as a security guard, his world is turned upside down when he finds himself embroiled in a different kind of urban war after a young woman seeks protection from a corrupt police death squad working for one of the most brutal drug cartels. As the pair continues to fight for their lives, the man must confront his inner demons and earn the redemption he desperately craves…

Set in the Philippines and opening with the kind of jungle-based action not scene since the 80s heyday of filmmakers like Teddy Page and Cirio H. Santiago – filmmakers who capitalised...

Raven Banner Entertainment continues to rack up sales for Richard V. Somes’ action spectacle “Topakk.”

“Topakk”(“Trigger”) has been sold to Aud (South Korea), Superfine Films (India), Kinologistika (Cis and the Baltics) and Lighthouse (German-speaking Europe).

It’s not the end of good news, as the film – debuting its trailer and produced by Fusee, with Strawdogs Studio Production and Nathan Studios co-producing – is also set to bow at Locarno next week.

“It’s an amazing feeling. I have never imagined it,” admits the director.

In “Topakk,” which he co-wrote with Jim Flores and Will Fredo, Somes shows a man struggling with Ptsd. Discharged from the army, he finds himself in the middle of a different kind of conflict when a drug peddler seeks his protection against a vigilante death squad.

“I am really inspired by the 1980s action films. It all started with ‘First Blood’ or even [Arnold Schwarzenegger starrer] ‘Commando.

Exclusive: Filipino production house Daluyong Studios, founded by Alemberg Ang, a co-producer on Japan’s Best International Feature Oscars submission Plan 75, is partnering with Tan Si En’s Singapore-based Momo Film Co to co-produce a slate of features and documentaries.

The joint slate includes feature films Don’t Cry, Butterfly, from rising Vietnamese filmmaker Duong Dieu Linh; and Tropical Rain, Death-Scented Kiss, directed by US-Singapore animation filmmaker Charlotte Hong Bee Her; as well as short film and feature Bold Eagle, directed by the Philippines’ Whammy Alcazaren; and documentary feature Tens Across The Borders, from Sze-Wei Chan.

Daluyong previously partnered with Tan Si En and Anthony Chen’s Giraffe Pictures on Some Nights I Feel Like Walking, from Filipino filmmaker Petersen Vargas, which is currently in pre-production. The project, about a teenage runaway who falls in with a group of hustlers, won the Seafic Award at the 2019 Southeast Asia Fiction...

Exclusive: Bangkok-based Night Edge Pictures, a new distributor and production outfit focused on horror and thriller titles, is launching this week with its first release, Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother, which is opening in Thailand on August 11.

Headed by former T&b Media Global executive Hans Audric Estialbo in the role of chief operating officer, the company has also acquired Nocebo, directed by Lorcan Finnegan and starring Eva Green and Mark Strong, from XYZ Films.

Night Edge’s upcoming slate also includes TrustNordisk’s thriller Speak No Evil, directed by Danish filmmaker Christian Tafdrup, which won best director at this year’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival; as well as Moloch, from Dutch filmmaker Nico van den Brink.

You Are Not My Mother, which marks Irish filmmaker Dolan’s feature debut, played in the Midnight Madness section at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and won...