KinoFest Special
Intersections

The questions raised across this year’s festival do not belong to a single place or culture. The ways we navigate faith, negotiate family, survive institutional weight, and care for one another are lived realities that resonate far beyond any single border.

Intersections brings contemporary Philippine cinema into direct conversation with the main lineup. These films offer their own distinct personal stories, touching on realities of labor, trauma, intimacy, and place.

The special opens with Joanne Cesario’s short film Invisible Labor, focusing on the hidden emotional effort of keeping memories and ideas alive, and how that work shows up in the physical objects we hold onto. From here the program turns to Ryan Machado’s feature film Rumaragasa (Raging), which looks at how violence forces people into silence, how trauma settles into the body, and what happens when those constraints finally break. Concluding the program is the Philippine premiere of Cris Bringas’ short documentary Body Count, a quiet, heavy look at how bodies carry history, intimacy, and grief over time.

The screening will be followed by an in-person talkback with directors of the Kinofest Special films.