MMFF 2024 movies, 'Hello, Love, Again' lead MIFF 2025 showcase in California
MANILA, Philippines — The entries of the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) and the highest-grossing Filipino movie, "Hello, Love, Again," lead the selection of films joining the 2025 Manila International Film Festival (MIFF).
The 2025 MIFF, the festival's second iteration, will hold screenings from January 30 to February 2 in Hollywood's iconic TCL Chinese Theatre. The gala will be at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, California on February 2.
Like the inaugural edition of the MIFF, all entries from the most recent MMFF will be screening, including Best Picture winners "Green Bones," "The Kingdom," "My Future You," and "Isang Himala."
The MIFF will also hold special screenings of past Filipino films, including "Hello, Love, Again," starring Kathryn Bernardo and Alden Richards, which ended its box office run at P1.4 billion late last year.
The film festival will also be screening the 75th anniversary of "Genghis Khan," a feature about the Mongol emperor of the same, considered one of the best post-war Filipino films ever made.
Directed and starring National Artist Manuel Conde with production design by another National Artist Carlos "Botong" Francisco, "Genghis Khan" was the first Filipino movie to screen in an international film festival (Venice in 1952) and was the country's first-ever submission to the Academy Awards.
Another anniversary being marked at the MIFF is the 25th year of Gene Cajayon's "The Debut," starring Dante Basco, Tirso Cruz III, Gina Alajar, and Eddie Garcia. Cajayon's film is considered a breakthrough movie for Filipino-American cinema.
Also getting special screenings are films about the Filipino-American experience: Doroteo B. Ines and James Love's "A Filipino in America" from 1938, which is about Filipino-Americans in the 1930s, and Regina Aquino's "Faith Healers," which highlights immigration in the 1960s.
The MIFF will serve as global premieres for "Love Hurts" by Filipino-American stuntman Jonathan Eusebio in his directorial debut and "Song of the Fireflies," starring Morisette Amon and Rachel Alejandro.
"Love Hurts" stars Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose, where the former plays a successful realtor who is pulled back into the life of a hitman by his former partner.
King Palisoc's "Song of the Fireflies," featuring music by National Artist Ryan Cayabyab, is about the famous Loboc Children's Choir founded by Alma Fernando Taldo.
Capping off the special screenings is Michele Josue's documentary, "Nurse Unseen," about migrant Filipino nurses continuously putting their lives on the line.
- Latest
