Watch award-winning Filipino short films in Dallas, Texas this January

Watch award-winning Filipino short films ‘Hito,’ ‘Dikit,’ and more in Dallas, Texas this Jan. 24 and 30 | Film poster from “Hito” Instagram and collage by Shievar Olegario on Instagram

Filipino films are having a great year so far. Short films by Filipino filmmakers are particularly getting attention from prestigious film festivals, including this year’s Sundance Festival, where three films by Filipino and Filipino-American directors are in its program.

In Dallas, Texas, microcinema Spacy is screening award-winning Filipino short films from recent years in a program called “Paglipas ng Gunaw (When the Apocalypse is Over).”

Curated by Filipino-American filmmaker and film critic A.E. Hunt, the screenings started on Jan. 20 with Glenn Barit’s nostalgic and angsty 2019 cult classic “Cleaners” along with Whammy Alcazaren’s two movies, “Fisting/Never Tear Us Apart” and “Bold Eagle.”

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“When the Apocalypse is Over” at Spacy continues well into January with two shorts block screenings on Jan. 20, 24, and 30, featuring eight award-winning short films.

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On Jan. 20 and 24, catch “It’s Raining Frogs Outside” (2021) by Maria Estela Paiso, “Hito” (2023) by Stephen Lopez, “Octogod” (2019) by Shievar Olegario, and “Dikit” (2022) by Dir. Gabriela Serrano.

Meanwhile, you can watch “I Get So Sad Sometimes” (2021) by Trishtan Perez, “Gossips of Cicadidae” (2022) by Dir. Vahn Leinard Pascual, “Somewhere a Destination” (2021) by Celeste Lapida, and “The River That Never Ends” (2022) by JT Trinidad on Jan. 20 and 30.

Some of these films debuted in local film festivals such as QCinema (“Hito” won Best Picture in its latest iteration) before ultimately going to screen in various international festivals.

“These digital, radically color-graded, and/or square or vertically framed alternate dimensions offer new ways of seeing Philippine myths, pasts, presents, and futures,” said Hunt. 

“With forms that are heavily motivated by VFX, post-production (processes in which the directors are often heavily if not solely involved), unlikely aspect ratios, etc. the body of work looks and moves in a way that actually feels new. Many of these stories imagine absurd, alienating worlds and characters who long for something or someone outside the limits of their heavily manipulated frames.”

Tickets are currently being sold for these screenings on Spacy’s website.