
Known for
NRA grieving detective finds himself increasingly ensnared while investigating a case involving a sinister navigation app causing physical and psychological debris.
The Remotes
2026
NRSet during the first quarter storm in the 1970s, policemen Homer, Conrad, and Billy are consumed by the murder case of troublemaking teenagers in the slums.
Manila's Finest
2025
5.8A small town in the Philippines is turned upside down by the arrival of a film crew that has everyone excited. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Lukas finds his own world overturned when he is told that his father is a tikbalang (half horse, half man). His father’s disappearance leaves Lukas to try to unravel the mystery of his own heritage and his own nature.
Lukas the Strange
2013
The setting is an abandoned airport in the Philippines. One of the absolute rock-bottom pits of globalisation, which is temporarily housing the lumads: a rootless and homeless group of modern nomadic people, who are struggling to find a place in the new urban reality. A visiting NGO worker moves in with shamans, large families and small children. They are all on their way to somewhere else, and they are all caught in the dusty and acid-green interiors of what once used to be luxury. Off-screen, a revolution is (possibly) under way, but even here, time seems to have stood still like a scratched gramophone record. 'Balangay' is related to the modern, Asian arts film, where the atmosphere of the location brings a collective character to life. But it is also solidly rooted in the reality which now haunts the threadbare remnants of the international utopias of the past.
Balangay
2010
5.4An examination of poverty and violence and the influence it has on two boys who live in a slum.
Sewer
2008
2.7Jungle Love follows a handful of people who have disappeared into the jungle: a woman who has kidnapped her sister's child; an urbane couple and their indigenous guide; a bored and horny platoon; and a nameless tribe. Disappearance has another meaning in Sanchez’s native Mindanao, where a decades-old conflict between the government and secessionists fighting for an Islamic state has made the region infamous for its kidnappings. Sanchez took inspiration from an incident in which a friend living abroad visited an exhibition, and found a photo of him labeled as one of the disappeared. Jungle Love is permeated with this sense of the uncanny, as narratives and identities fracture and fuse into one another in the reckless, lonely places people go to escape themselves.
Jungle Love
2012
Film credits
2010s · 2 titles
4.8Documentary profiling the directors involved in the loose Philippine New Wave filmmaking movement.
Philippine New Wave: This Is Not a Film Movement
2010
NRA story focusing on a elite law school fraternity, it follows a week in the lives of a neophyte, a master, and a lawyer alumnus, and crosses the lines of money, power and connections within Manila’s society.
Kapatiran
2015
Behind the camera
NRA grieving detective finds himself increasingly ensnared while investigating a case involving a sinister navigation app causing physical and psychological debris.
The Remotes
2026
NRSet during the first quarter storm in the 1970s, policemen Homer, Conrad, and Billy are consumed by the murder case of troublemaking teenagers in the slums.
Manila's Finest
2025
5.8A small town in the Philippines is turned upside down by the arrival of a film crew that has everyone excited. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Lukas finds his own world overturned when he is told that his father is a tikbalang (half horse, half man). His father’s disappearance leaves Lukas to try to unravel the mystery of his own heritage and his own nature.
Lukas the Strange
2013
The setting is an abandoned airport in the Philippines. One of the absolute rock-bottom pits of globalisation, which is temporarily housing the lumads: a rootless and homeless group of modern nomadic people, who are struggling to find a place in the new urban reality. A visiting NGO worker moves in with shamans, large families and small children. They are all on their way to somewhere else, and they are all caught in the dusty and acid-green interiors of what once used to be luxury. Off-screen, a revolution is (possibly) under way, but even here, time seems to have stood still like a scratched gramophone record. 'Balangay' is related to the modern, Asian arts film, where the atmosphere of the location brings a collective character to life. But it is also solidly rooted in the reality which now haunts the threadbare remnants of the international utopias of the past.
Balangay
2010
5.4An examination of poverty and violence and the influence it has on two boys who live in a slum.
Sewer
2008
5.4An examination of poverty and violence and the influence it has on two boys who live in a slum.
Sewer
2008
2.7Jungle Love follows a handful of people who have disappeared into the jungle: a woman who has kidnapped her sister's child; an urbane couple and their indigenous guide; a bored and horny platoon; and a nameless tribe. Disappearance has another meaning in Sanchez’s native Mindanao, where a decades-old conflict between the government and secessionists fighting for an Islamic state has made the region infamous for its kidnappings. Sanchez took inspiration from an incident in which a friend living abroad visited an exhibition, and found a photo of him labeled as one of the disappeared. Jungle Love is permeated with this sense of the uncanny, as narratives and identities fracture and fuse into one another in the reckless, lonely places people go to escape themselves.
Jungle Love
2012
2.7Jungle Love follows a handful of people who have disappeared into the jungle: a woman who has kidnapped her sister's child; an urbane couple and their indigenous guide; a bored and horny platoon; and a nameless tribe. Disappearance has another meaning in Sanchez’s native Mindanao, where a decades-old conflict between the government and secessionists fighting for an Islamic state has made the region infamous for its kidnappings. Sanchez took inspiration from an incident in which a friend living abroad visited an exhibition, and found a photo of him labeled as one of the disappeared. Jungle Love is permeated with this sense of the uncanny, as narratives and identities fracture and fuse into one another in the reckless, lonely places people go to escape themselves.
Jungle Love
2012
3.8Gigi from Arakan Valley is a woman rebel who teaches young comrades the facets of their struggle as they remain to be in waiting after they were ambushed. In a nearby village, Junjun and his fellow soldiers take a rest. He attempts to chance upon a girl he longs for, but instead encounters a balyan/tagbawian (shaman) in a very disturbing situation. Somewhere, two kids, Abyan and Busaw, trek the forest back to their mother. Huling Balyan ng Buhi : O Ang Sinalirap nga Asoy Nila weaves the tales of rebels in waiting, playful soldiers at rest and a troubled balyan (village healer) in a very ambiguous predicament. A quandary that will usher them all to one encounter that can bring to light the questions of transcendence.
Huling Balyan ng Buhi
2006
3.8Gigi from Arakan Valley is a woman rebel who teaches young comrades the facets of their struggle as they remain to be in waiting after they were ambushed. In a nearby village, Junjun and his fellow soldiers take a rest. He attempts to chance upon a girl he longs for, but instead encounters a balyan/tagbawian (shaman) in a very disturbing situation. Somewhere, two kids, Abyan and Busaw, trek the forest back to their mother. Huling Balyan ng Buhi : O Ang Sinalirap nga Asoy Nila weaves the tales of rebels in waiting, playful soldiers at rest and a troubled balyan (village healer) in a very ambiguous predicament. A quandary that will usher them all to one encounter that can bring to light the questions of transcendence.
Huling Balyan ng Buhi
2006
3.8Gigi from Arakan Valley is a woman rebel who teaches young comrades the facets of their struggle as they remain to be in waiting after they were ambushed. In a nearby village, Junjun and his fellow soldiers take a rest. He attempts to chance upon a girl he longs for, but instead encounters a balyan/tagbawian (shaman) in a very disturbing situation. Somewhere, two kids, Abyan and Busaw, trek the forest back to their mother. Huling Balyan ng Buhi : O Ang Sinalirap nga Asoy Nila weaves the tales of rebels in waiting, playful soldiers at rest and a troubled balyan (village healer) in a very ambiguous predicament. A quandary that will usher them all to one encounter that can bring to light the questions of transcendence.
Huling Balyan ng Buhi
2006
NRIn a town where friars lord it over the laymen and peasants, trust is a foreign word. As the townspeople prepare a despedida for the dismissed Mayor, suspicions arise, unraveling secrets that could change the course of their history.
Kolorete
2009
4.2This film was shot around the Bangkerohan River in Davao City on the southern Filipino island Mindanao. This area is the backdrop to degrading poverty that apparently can lead to degrading morality. A young girl watches with resignation. She works as mananaptan, someone who sings during funerals for the dead. And more services are expected of her. Fatally indifferent surroundings let it all happen.
Apple
2005
4.2This film was shot around the Bangkerohan River in Davao City on the southern Filipino island Mindanao. This area is the backdrop to degrading poverty that apparently can lead to degrading morality. A young girl watches with resignation. She works as mananaptan, someone who sings during funerals for the dead. And more services are expected of her. Fatally indifferent surroundings let it all happen.
Apple
2005
5.0A news team investigating rumors of aswang killings in a remote barrio are attacked by a group of soldiers, forcing them to run for their lives in the deeps of the forest, where more mystery and danger lay in wait.
Salvage
2015
5.0A news team investigating rumors of aswang killings in a remote barrio are attacked by a group of soldiers, forcing them to run for their lives in the deeps of the forest, where more mystery and danger lay in wait.
Salvage
2015
5.0A news team investigating rumors of aswang killings in a remote barrio are attacked by a group of soldiers, forcing them to run for their lives in the deeps of the forest, where more mystery and danger lay in wait.
Salvage
2015
