Quezon came into the 49th Gawad Urian with 10 nominations, more than any other film on the ballot. It won four trophies, none of them Best Film. The Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (MPP), the Filipino film critics’ group that has run the Urian since 1976, gave its top prize to Bloom Where You Are Planted, Noni Abao’s 82-minute documentary about three land rights activists in Cagayan Valley. Abao also won Best Director, and the film added Best Editing and Best Documentary, for four wins, the same number as Quezon.
The ceremony was held on October 8 at the Teresa Yuchengco Auditorium of De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila. The MPP co-hosted it with DLSU and the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), the government agency that oversees the local film industry. This edition falls in the MPP’s 50th year: the group was founded on May 1, 1976, when a circle of writers and professors met at a café in Malate and agreed the country needed a film award judged on artistic merit. This year’s Natatanging Gawad Urian, the group’s lifetime achievement award, went to veteran director and actress Laurice Guillen.
Both lead acting categories ended in ties. Odette Khan and Maris Racal shared Best Actress, and Carlo Aquino and Jericho Rosales shared Best Actor.
A Documentary Takes the Top Prize Again
Bloom Where You Are Planted follows three activists whose lives meet in Cagayan Valley: development worker Agnes Mesina; artist and activist Amanda Echanis, arrested in 2020 and still detained; and peace consultant Randy Malayao, who was shot dead on a bus in 2019. Abao started the project after Malayao’s killing, as a film about him alone, and widened it after Mesina and Echanis were arrested. Before he made films, Abao spent years as a human rights worker in the region. On the Pulutan podcast he put it plainly: “Binago ng Cagayan Valley buhay ko” (Cagayan Valley changed my life).
The film first won Best Film at Cinemalaya, the country’s flagship independent film festival, in October 2025. Last year’s Urian Best Picture also went to a documentary: JL Burgos’s Alipato at Muog, about the 2007 disappearance of his brother, activist Jonas Burgos. Both films were made by people with a personal stake in their subjects. Che Tagyamon won Best Editing for Bloom, cutting its testimonies and archival material into three chapters, one for each activist.
Quezon Takes the Craft Awards
Most of Quezon‘s wins came in the technical categories. Monica Sebial won Best Production Design, Pong Ignacio won Best Cinematography, and director Jerrold Tarog won Best Music for the score he composed himself. Rosales’s shared Best Actor win for playing Manuel L. Quezon follows the Best Actor trophy he took at the Manila International Film Festival for the same role in September.
The other major prizes went elsewhere. Best Director went to Abao over Tarog. Best Screenplay went to Renei Dimla for Republika ng Pipolipinas, ahead of Tarog and Rody Vera’s Quezon script. Scottish actor Iain Glen’s Best Supporting Actor nomination for Quezon also came up short.
Bar Boys Comes Back With Three
Bar Boys: After School, Kip Oebanda’s sequel about law students facing the bar exam, won three awards from seven nominations, the most acting wins of any film. Khan won Best Supporting Actress at the 41st Gawad Urian in 2018 for the original Bar Boys. Eight years later, she takes the lead prize for the sequel. Carlo Aquino, who also starred in the first film, shares Best Actor with Rosales. Actor Will Ashley won Best Supporting Actor, his first Urian, in a field that included Joshua Garcia, Enrique Gil, and Glen.
Racal’s Best Actress win is also her first Urian. In Antoinette Jadaone’s Sunshine, she plays a teenage gymnast who learns she is pregnant days before the national team tryouts, a role she will play again on stage in 2027. Jennica Garcia won Best Supporting Actress for the same film, giving Sunshine two wins from eight nominations.
Who Went Home Empty-Handed
Cinemartyrs, Sari Dalena’s film about a young filmmaker recreating forgotten massacres from Philippine history, tied Sunshine for second-most nominations with eight. It won one: Best Sound, for Emilio Bien Sparks.
Lav Diaz’s Magellan, the Philippines’ entry to the 98th Academy Awards, lost all three of its nominations. The film had already missed Best Film and Best Director when nominations came out in September, and its chances in Best Supporting Actor, Best Production Design, and Best Cinematography went to Bar Boys and Quezon.
Quezon gets another shot on October 27, when the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS), the country’s oldest film award-giving body, names its winners. It is tied for the lead in the FAMAS nominations with 12.
Complete List of Winners, 49th Gawad Urian
- Best Film: Bloom Where You Are Planted
- Best Director: Noni Abao, Bloom Where You Are Planted
- Best Actress (tie): Odette Khan, Bar Boys: After School; Maris Racal, Sunshine
- Best Actor (tie): Carlo Aquino, Bar Boys: After School; Jericho Rosales, Quezon
- Best Supporting Actress: Jennica Garcia, Sunshine
- Best Supporting Actor: Will Ashley, Bar Boys: After School
- Best Screenplay: Renei Dimla, Republika ng Pipolipinas
- Best Production Design: Monica Sebial, Quezon
- Best Cinematography: Pong Ignacio, Quezon
- Best Editing: Che Tagyamon, Bloom Where You Are Planted
- Best Music: Jerrold Tarog, Quezon
- Best Sound: Emilio Bien Sparks, Cinemartyrs
- Best Short Film: Cemento (Justine Borlagdan)
- Best Documentary: Bloom Where You Are Planted (Noni Abao)
- Natatanging Gawad Urian: Laurice Guillen