QCinema’s 14th edition runs November 13 to 22 across five Quezon City cinemas, opening with a Filipino animated horror film that is also in the main competition.
The 14th QCinema International Film Festival opens on November 13 with a Filipino animated film about a 12-year-old mambabarang, a sorcerer who works curses through insects. Ella Arcangel: Awit ng Pangil at Kuko (Ballad of Tooth and Claw) follows a girl from a Manila slum who inherits her grandmother’s role fighting the supernatural creatures that trouble her community. The film is set during the government’s drug war, and Ella starts to question who the real monsters are.
The film is also one of eight titles in Asian Next Wave, the festival’s main competition. That makes it a test of how far a homegrown genre film can go against the region’s festival-circuit winners.
QCinema, Quezon City’s official film festival, runs through November 22 under the theme “Genre’teurs.” The program looks at directors who take a familiar genre, such as horror, the heist or the romantic comedy, and bend it to their own voice. The festival also announced its five QCShorts grantees earlier this month.
A Comic Book Witch, Three Years in the Making
Ella Arcangel is directed by Mervin Malonzo, a National Book Award winner for the Philippine mythology comic Tabi Po. It is adapted from Julius Villanueva’s comic series, and Villanueva co-wrote the script. Bianca Umali voices Ella. GMA Pictures produced it with Manny Angeles and Avid Liongoren.
The festival had a hand in the film before the lineup was announced. In 2023 the project received a ₱1.5 million co-production grant from the QCinema Project Market, the festival’s development program. Malonzo’s earlier short set in the same world, Ella Arcangel: Oyayi sa Dilim, won the top prize at the Animahenasyon festival in 2020.
Who Ella Is Up Against
The rest of Asian Next Wave has already won major festival prizes. 9 Temples to Heaven by Sompot Chidgasornpongse premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in May and is Thailand’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. Aung Phyoe’s Fruit Gathering, from Myanmar, won the Crystal Globe Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The Burning Giants, by Thai director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, is another QCinema Project Market alumnus that premiered in the Orizzonti section at Venice. The section is completed by Zou Jing’s A Girl Unknown, Taichi Kimura’s Fujiko, Lê Bảo’s Hearing and Yoon Dan-bi’s The World Before.
The festival runs three other competitions. New Horizons is for first and second features. RainbowQC, the LGBTQIA+ section, includes Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which won the Queer Palm at Cannes. QCShorts International pairs the five grantees with short films from across Southeast Asia.
Two Lav Diaz Films, Twenty-Five Years Apart
Lav Diaz appears in two sections. His new film, Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors), is in Screen International, the showcase of the year’s festival titles. It is set in 1617 and follows a Spanish priest building a church in the jungle and the illegitimate son who hauls marble for it through hostile territory. It won the Brian Award at Venice in September. Screen International also includes Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, this year’s Palme d’Or winner, along with new work from Paweł Pawlikowski and Hong Sang-soo.
His 2001 film Batang West Side is in Rediscovery, the section of restored classics. In it, a Filipino detective investigates the killing of a Filipino teenager in Jersey City. It was later named the Gawad Urian’s best film of the decade 2000 to 2009.
Rediscovery also runs a tribute to the writer and screenwriter Pete Lacaba. It includes Lino Brocka’s Jaguar, the first Filipino film to compete for the Palme d’Or, in 1980, and Mike de Leon’s Sister Stella L. Victor Villanueva’s Patay na si Hesus returns to the festival that first awarded it. Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue is also in the section.
Other Filipino titles are spread across the exhibition sections. Isabel Sandoval’s Moonglow, a crime drama set in 1970s Manila, is in Before Midnight, the late-night genre section. Khavn’s Bomba Bernal, a documentary on the 1970s bomba (softcore) films of the Martial Law era, is in Dokyu Days, the documentary section.
The festival closes with Look Back, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s live-action adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga about two young artists. It competed at Venice.
Field Notes
- Dates: November 13 to 22, 2026
- Opening film: Ella Arcangel: Awit ng Pangil at Kuko, Mervin Malonzo
- Closing film: Look Back, Hirokazu Kore-eda
- Venues: Gateway Cineplex 18 (Araneta City, Cubao), Robinsons Movieworld Galleria, Ayala Malls Cinemas TriNoMa, Fisher Box Office (Fisher Mall), SM Cinema SM City Fairview
- Tickets: ₱200 per screening
- Schedules: qcinema.ph