Movies by Carlo Aquino

Porno
An assassin, a porn dubber and a transgender. Three souls. One explicit illusion. To find the ultimate joy in their empty lives. A safe haven, where passion and love mean humanity, ecstasy means enlightenment, and the soul is the ultimate.

Goyo: The Boy General
With this film (the second war trilogy set during the Filipino-American war in the early 1900s), the revolution marches on against the Americans after the bloody death of General Antonio Luna. The conflicted philosophies behind the heroic struggle continue and become personified in the colorful character of General Gregorio "Goyo" del Pilar.

Rain
In this coming-of-age-film about self-love, Maya is a girl who has always held a pessimistic view of the rain, reminding her of failed love and other depressing things. Will the rain ever stop her in her journey to overcome past heartaches?

Third World Romance
An outspoken cashier and laidback grocery bagger navigate the path to being happy despite the challenges of their blue-collared living in a world where nothing comes for free.
Carnivore
Student wants to join a fraternity and has to endure live endangering tests in order to do so.

Bar Boys
The misadventures of three young men who try their luck in the college of law. As their friendship, families, relationships and convictions are brought to breaking point, they must keep their heads and emotions together as they prepare for the big day.

Lea's Story
A fiercely independent and unflinchingly candid woman connected with a women's crisis and survival center has to raise her two kids with different fathers. Her first husband has left her when their career options failed to converge. She is now stuck in an extramarital arrangement with another man who cannot bring himself to respect and commit to their quite unorthodox relationship.

Exes Baggage
After a chance encounter, Pia and Nix instantly hit it off. Natural conversations eventually develop into deep attraction. Despite their wounds from previous relationships, both decide to take a chance on each other. But when their love blossoms into a relationship, their differences will test their love and will make them question: Are they ready for love when they're still carrying baggage from their past?

The Missing
When an alien comes back to take him, a mouthless young man's life twists and turns as his memories untangle.

Daddy O! Baby O!
A middle aged bachelor Mario spent his life taking care of his eccentric sister Brenda. He sells goodies in a mobile cart for a living. His daily routine gets a sudden turnaround when his dying friend Arnold made him promise to take care of his daughter Ana. But Ana is not just an ordinary little girl, despite her angelic look; she is cunning and mischievous who is in search of her estranged mother. Mario and Ana agreed that they would earn money to look for Ana’s mother in Cebu, but Ana should tame down. Mario performs his new task as a fat...
I-Libings
A coming of age story about Isabel’s lessons and realizations on life and death as a funeral videography intern. Due to her family situation, Isabel is cynical and skeptical of everything that comes her way. When she enters the I-libings for her required college internship, she sees it as the worst internship her college adviser could suggest to her. Later as she accumulates her required hours, she realizes that the company is not just a place where videographers make money out of other people’s misfortunes but is a place where the dead a...

Diablo
Every night, Nana Lusing lies on her bed sleepless because she sees a dark figure looming in her room. Who is this shadow? Is this the devil? Her late husband? A manifestation of her anxieties? Or simply a figment of her imagination?
Yesterday Children
It is the time of El Niño, a season ruled by superstition and fear. The rain is long in coming, the ground has cracked up dry. The ricestalks are thin and sickly. Villagers go hungry. And a boy dies from a snakebite. The adults splinter. Some pray. Others join a cult to appease earth spirits and wait for the ada, the ricefield spirit goddess of bountiful harvest who dances naked on moonlit nights and signals the need for a virgin’s sacrifice. There are fence sitters, equally pro-church and pro-cult. A landlord’s steward enforces his master’s...

New Moon
Ahmad belongs to the Bangsamoro people. While many of his kind are bent on fighting, thinking that Mindanao is only for the Muslims, Ahmad prefers to live a simple and peaceful life. He works as a doctor in Manila while his wife, Fatima, and his only son, Ibrahim, stay in Mindanao with his mother, Farida. Ahmad is shocked and devastated when Fatima breaks the confounding news. Ibrahim was killed by a stray bullet when vigilantes indiscriminately fire at their village. Ahmad goes back to where he came from Mindanao. Ibrahim’s death did not ca...

Awaken
One night the docile teenager Rey is mauled as he passes by a drinking spree of street toughies: Pogi, Jopet, Kahoy and Taba. Pogi hates Rey for the simple reason that he secretly loves Rey’s girlfriend. Jopet, a self-claimed police asset, finds Rey a convenient substitute for pouring out his hatred for his handler, a sadistic cop. Kahoy and Taba join in for the sake of camaraderie. Rey regains consciousness and finds his tormentors drunk and asleep… The director: “In the Philippines we see all these things and we don’t even recognize it, be...

Isa Pa, with Feelings
Despite their differences, an aspiring architect falls for her deaf neighbor, who teaches her basic sign language.

Minsan May Isang Puso
Boyet Palacios is a teenage boy whose family used to be middle class. Reversal of fortune happens after the father gets sick and becomes a vegetable confined to his bed.

Porno
An assassin, a porn dubber and a transgender. Three souls. One explicit illusion. To find the ultimate joy in their empty lives. A safe haven, where passion and love mean humanity, ecstasy means enlightenment; and the soul is the ultimate arbiter of the truth.

Angelito
A short film about Antonio Luna’s aides-de-camp Jose and Manuel Bernal during the aftermath of Luna’s assassination.

Sugatang Puso
A divorced man who marries a widowed wife. De Leon's previous wife suddenly develops problems, and De Leon is forced to bring his son back home to live with him, his wife and her own son.