Queer stories in focus at community-based screening

Film collective Hyperfocus teams up with The Millas Cafe

SIX short films centered on LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer plus) stories were screened at a Pride Month event organized by the film collective Hyperfocus.

The six films, coming from both local and international filmmakers, sparked discussions on June 26 at The Millas Hostel and Cafe along Imperial St. in Cubao, Quezon City, where its microcinema on the second floor occasionally hosts community-based film screenings.

Both Hyperfocus and The Millas share the goal of championing the Philippines’ burgeoning filmmaking scene. They partnered on a similar screening event in March, highlighting short films by women filmmakers for Women’s Month.

“We all know that queer films aren’t very accessible to us and that the queer community is always looking for more representation,” said Arnex Nicolas, a co-founder of Hyperfocus and the project head for YAAAS, QUEER! 2.0, in his opening speech.

He said that the film screening had its first edition around the same time last year, also for Pride Month, but at a smaller venue in Cubao Expo.

“Now we’re at a bigger venue and a lot of people signed up,” he said, noting that it marks Hyperfocus’ largest event so far and proves that queer cinema deserves its own platforms, both big and small.

In the lineup were the Filipino short films Honey, My Love, So Sweet (2025) by JT Trinidad; A Catholic School Girl (2023) by Myra Angeline Soriaso; and Yelo (2025) by Gab Rosique, all of which were previously shown at the QCinema International Film Festival.

The foreign films shown that night were Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites (2025) by Thai filmmaker Chheangkea; the Lisbon-set film Those Who Move (2025) by Brazilian director and producer Stephanie Ricci; and the Bangkok-set film Juju vs. The Possibilities of Life, Love and Death (2024) by Burmese artist Htet Aung Lwyn.

Admission was free with any purchase from The Millas’ Cafe. Before the screening, the event started with a trivia session, which allowed audience members to team up and flex their knowledge of LGBTQ+ history and cinema.

IMAGINATION AS RESISTANCE
Jason Tan Liwag, programmer for QCinema, moderated the talkback with the three Filipino directors whose films were in the lineup.

He pointed out that all of their works started out as student productions and that they did not shy away from depicting different facets of queer intimacy.

For Yelo director Mr. Rosique, filmmaking is an avenue to discover answers to long-standing questions about uncertain realities and queer identities in the Philippines.

“I have more questions than answers and I discover the answers through making the film,” he said. “I try to find the ‘why’ behind the choices of the characters.”

Set in the cramped heat of a thrift shop in Cubao, Yelo centers on the relationship between Jessa, a lesbian, and Candy, a transwoman. When a foreigner arrives with the promise of America, their lives are led astray.

Mr. Rosique added that, as someone from the province living in the city, the film was a result of how he observed people would “look for something to hold on to in a world that seems on the verge of collapse.”

“It always feels like a promise, like there’s something you’re looking for but cannot really reach,” he said.

Meanwhile, the struggle to affirm one’s queer identity was seen in A Catholic Schoolgirl by Ms. Soriaso, set in an all-girls Catholic school in Iloilo where a teenager confronts her feelings for a school nun.

“The challenge was the location,” the filmmaker said, as she recounted reaching out to a specific school that held a meeting with parents and board members then denied their request to shoot there. They ended up filming elsewhere.

“It’s sad we faced a lot of hindrances because my film is representation for queer kids, so that they know they’re not alone,” she said.

Another coming-of-age short was Mr. Trinidad’s Honey, My Love, So Sweet, set in the decaying Times Theater in Quiapo. A young boy who lives in the old cinema discovers his first feelings of love.

“It’s a love letter to filmmaking, to cinema as a space,” he explained. “Demolished spaces represent death, but new life emerges from these spaces, which is very trans.”

Like Mr. Rosique, he described films as a way “to understand things better,” which is important for the LGBTQ+ community that lives in grays and uncertainties.

Aside from Hyperfocus’ YAAAS, QUEER! 2.0, many other groups held Pride Month screenings, the best known being the Film Development Council’s Pelikulaya and the QCinema Pride Film Festival.

Mr. Trinidad said that films and platforms for queer stories are themselves a fight for LGBTQ+ rights. “With cinema, we see life and all its possibilities,” he said. “Imagination is fighting in itself. It’s a form of resistance.”

To find out about Hyperfocus and The Millas’ future events, follow their pages on social media. — Brontë H. Lacsamana