Singular voices amidst the noise

A look at Cinemalaya 2025 Shorts A

- Bronté H. Lacsamana Reporter

THE short films in Cinemalaya this year, particularly in the Shorts A group, shed light on seemingly small stories that may at first glance seem common and unimportant.

With singular voices that cut through the noise of the world today, all five give life to overlooked struggles. There's the rebellious queerness of students in an all-boys Catholic school, the misery of an office worker who finds solace in the lottery, the absurd grief process of a young man taking care of his grandmother, the fierce pride of a bizarre chicken-dance group, and the quiet agony of a woman after a sexual assault.

Besides being distinctly Filipino, these five films challenge us to question the simple realities that many people face.

PLEASE KEEP THIS COPY

This set of shorts opens with a film directed by Miguel Lorenzo Peralta, who bares his soul in a barrage of personal archival materials connecting his all-boys Catholic high school experience with the nation’s collective memory.

In just five minutes, he depicts the rowdy dynamic of teenagers without ever showing any of their faces. All we see are scans of old documents, class schedules, test papers, doodles upon doodles, and objects related to the Catholic school experience. All we hear are the boys’ dirty jokes, boisterous laughter, playful singing, and youthful queerness among friends, interspersed with ominous loud noises.

The political milieu circa 2016, when Mr. Peralta was in high school, informs the culture of obedience, violence, and toxic masculinity that restricts them — all of which this film manages to show, not tell. It’s a testament to how the echoes of normalized repression, religious trauma, and abuse of power reverberate in classrooms, and how a group of queer boys navigates the chaos.