In a colorful stream of vignettes, there is something quite intimidating being placed in the midst of great artistry—and to feel the familiarity, a mirror of reality, depicted on the big screen.
This is what aspiring Angelite filmmakers captured and exuded in PeliCuliat: Luid ya ing Síneng Kapampángan 2025, held at the Library Theater of Angeles City Library and Information Center last January 19.
PeliCuliat 2025, hosted by Junior Chamber International (JCI) Angeles City Culiat, hauled both experienced and emerging filmmakers into a cinematic landscape of storytelling and discourse. The event featured fresh perspectives, local stories, and seasoned expertise through its filmviewing and talkback sessions, along with the exclusive director’s roundtable.
In the flock of aspiring filmmakers from different parts of Angeles City, there was no shortage of Angelites who shared their youthful works on the big screen—namely, Bachelor of Arts (BA) in communication students OJ Ferreras, Joshua Castro, Franchezca Gueco, and Cole Tidula.
Four Films, Four Stories
The indie showcase opens strong with Buhos (2024), a six-minute short film written and directed by OJ Ferreras, starring Ferreras himself as “Patrick” and Ian Karl Miranda as “Caloy.” The film is a bold attempt for a group of first-year communication students as it touches on themes with great depth and gravity—death and suicide.
Starting off laidback and blase, the film gradually uncovers the emotional layers of the characters, centering on the biting silence that lingers even in the daze and delirium of drunken conversations between two best friends. Then, it takes you to the crippling shock of losing what once was so alive, the regret that follows, then to the fork in the road of facing or escaping from it. But at its core, Buhos (2024) conveys that it is always the best-kept secret that scorns even the tightest of alliances.
Coming next is a seven-minute short film directed by Joshua Castro, written by Kyle Francois Miranda and Laarni Mendoza, Takbo (2023). Initially submitted as an entry for CineKayabe, this taboo-smashing short film follows “Bern,” played by Miguel Panga, as he is chased down to rock bottom by the degrading remarks on his body.
With a comedic undertone, the film is by turns mild and vigorous, carried by its abrupt cuts and superb sound scoring. One ace of Castro’s storytelling is the use of routines. First is the routine of slothful days, languid and lazy—then follows the active routine of endless races, energized and desperate. And in neither situation—idling nor running—was satisfaction traced in Bern’s face. Ultimately, Takbo (2023) sprints past the bigoted handicaps attached to a certain shape and weight; rather, it roams on the feats our body allows us to achieve.
Third on the list is Inyala Rosalya (2024), a short horror film directed by Franchezca Gueco, starring Tin Manato as Rosalya, Claire Navarro as “Taliyah,” Czamela Guina as “Diana,” and Juliya Muli as “Hazel.” Being nothing one would expect at first glance, Inyala Rosalya (2024) is gripping and breathtaking, itching into your curiosity with a slow build of tension.
Strikingly, Gueco did impressive work blending horror, suspense, and drama in this 12-minute short film. Melodramatic acting paired with suggestive dialogues and spine-chilling cinematography, Inyala Rosalya (2024) creeps into the lengths and limits of familial relations: how love can turn to hate, how grief can cause blood to spill.
Unique and uncompromising, this last film, which also won the night’s Audience Choice Award, banks purely on visual storytelling—Mary and the Ghost (2024), directed by Cole Tidula. Starring Allona Arceo as “Mary” and Abigayle Bonilla as “The Ghost,” the experimental film has Tidula weaving his story with poignant but endearing mise en scène completely devoid of dialogue.
With neither riveting plots nor the intention to shock, everything rests on thoughtfully reading the distance and proximity between Mary and The Ghost—the negative space between the two that is never quite empty; rather, it’s a haunting and piercing hollow. In Mary and the Ghost (2024), Tidula created a three-minute-long pictorial poem all clad in somber beauty.
Fledglings and Auteurs as Outstretched Pulses of Culture
Following the film viewing and talkback sessions was the director’s roundtable, led by Holy Angel University (HAU) alumni filmmakers BC Amparado, Emmanuel Liwanag, Carlo Catu, and Jonathan David. In this intimate conversation, the filmmakers trace back to the days when they were once just like Ferreras, Castro, Gueco, and Tidula—still fledglings in the community of filmmaking but headstrong in the act.
Filmmaking, more often, is a punishing pursuit than it is easy. More often, filmmakers have their hands outstretched, either reaching out for or holding on to something. This is what Amparado, Liwanag, Catu, and David conveyed as they talk about their journeys in filmmaking—and this, too, was a common running theme in all four films with the presence of vulnerability and the undertone of grief in each story.
In the midst of it all, there is something quite intimidating to be placed between new and established filmmakers—to be the audience, mere spectator, of their mirroring realities. In PeliCuliat 2025, you can hear the quiet tremor of their pulse, in sync, beating for the life of Kapampangan film artistry.
