This year’s seven finalists possess liberating out-of-the-box storytelling. They have potentials to open a new genre or combine genres and make names for its directors, writers and actors. The seven finalists and competing digital movie entries this year are: Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria by Remton Siega Zuasola, a novelty comedy of a young provincial lass who becomes a mail order bride to hoist her family from poverty. Third World Happy of writer-director EJ Salcedo is a melodrama about a balikbayan artist who has spent most of his life abroad but whose perspectives in life changes when he comes home to attend a funeral and reunites with his friends and girlfriend. Astro Mayabang of director Jason Paul Laxamana is a social satire about a financially, socially, intellectually and sexually frustrated man who boasts of his nationalism and Pinoy pride, but ends up humiliated because of his misguided and aggressive ways. Dagim by director Joaquin Pedro Valdes who also co-wrote it with J. Eliseo Sandico is about two farm brothers whose search for their lost father lead them to a company of strange mountain inhabitants. Ishmael by Richard Somes who gave us last year’s most triumphant winner Yanggaw, is about an ex-convict who is ostracized by his neighborhood. Little does he know that this neighborhood he once knew is set to awaken his past. Tsardyer by writer-director Sigfreid Barros-Sanchez is based on a true-to-life story of a young boy who was tasked by rebel soldiers to charge their phones used for their negotiations with the government while holding the media people they kidnapped. Layang Bilanggo is a family drama about a fugitive on the run who yearns for the love of his daughter that he abandoned several years ago and disguises in an attempt to get near her.
