18.01.24, 20:30, Leonor Will Never Die (2022)

This delightfully self-referential mix between comedy, drama and thriller is Martika Ramirez Escobar's feature debut and an homage to the Filipino action films shot on video in the 70s and 80s. Once respected within the action film circuit, these days the forgotten Leonor Reyes struggles to make ends meet. When she unearths an old project, it opens the door to her past and she rediscovers her favourite form of escapism. Swept up in her fantasy, she is then literally hit by a television set falling out of the window (a hilariously obvious metaphor) and ends up in a coma and thus in her own unfinished film world, looking for a perfect ending. Son Ruby, meanwhile, wonders how to pull his mother back into the normal world. "Do you think Ma will wake up if we make her movie?"

Switching back and forth between different levels of reality and playing with the conventions of different genres, the film is both a moving melodrama about a mother's grief, a domestic comedy and at moments even a glorious musical. This whirlpool of visual ideas and meta-quotes will conquer you with its rarely seen charm and originality.