Once a prominent action filmmaker, Leonor spends her senior years with the ghost of her dead son and the pestering, very alive presence of her younger son. In her cramped apartment, she distracts herself from overdue electricity bills by daydreaming about her movies, until a freak accident causes her to fall into a coma. In this liminal state, Leonor magically finds herself in the production of one of her own long-forgotten, unfinished screenplays, blurring the lines between reality and dream, life and death. Colourful, exuberant, packed with thrills and B-movie nostalgia, writer-director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s debut feature is an homage to the power of stories, the enduring force of grief, and a tender love letter to filmmaking itself. 2022 winner of the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit at Sundance.
Packed with self-reflexive humor and a deep reverence for the art of filmmaking, Leonor Will Never Die establishes writer/director Martika Ramirez Escobar as an artist with a singular voice and bright future in halls of weird cinema.”—Marya E. Gates, RogerEbert.com
Amplify Voices Award, TIFF 2022 & World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Innovative Spirit, Sundance 2022
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Community Partner
Sheila Francisco, Bong Cabrera, Rocky Salumbides, Anthony Falcon
Philippines
2022
In Filipino and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
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Rear Window
James Stewart is the man who sees too much. "Jeff" Jeffries is a sports photographer waylaid by a broken leg, doomed to spend the summer in a wheelchair in his New York apartment. That's how he comes to witness a murder in the dead of night (or does he?).
Vivaldi and Me
Venice, 1716. Composer Antonio Vivaldi teaches at an orphanage for abandoned girls, and establishes a deep rapport with violinist Cecelia — but their collaboration is threatened by her impending arranged marriage.
Whispers in the Woods
A luxuriant, healing immersion in nature with ravishing wildlife photography, this is the cinematic equivalent of "forest bathing," a trip deep into the Vosges, France, with photographer Vincent Munier (The Velvet Queen), his father and his son.
Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings begins with an onslaught of fucks. It's the first signal that this rom-com will break from tradition, despite the ritualized structural conceit described in the title. The witty screenplay is by Richard Curtis — it's still his best.
Camp
Reeling from two devastating tragedies, Emily (Zola Grimmer) takes refuge at a summer camp for troubled youth, where she has been offered a position as counsellor. She finds friendship, but also something more unexpected, something truly troubling...
Credits
Executive Producer
Aurora Oreta, Martika Ramirez Escobar, Quark Henares
Producer
Monster Jimenez, Mario Cornejo
Screenwriter
Martika Ramirez Escobar
Cinematography
Carlos Mauricio
Editor
Lawrence S. Ang
Production Design
Eero Yves S. Francisco
Original Music
Alyana Cabral and Pan De Coco
Director
Martika Ramirez Escobar
Martika Ramirez Escobar was born in Manila in 1992. Her love for the bizarre is best reflected through her films and photography. After graduating with honours from the University of the Philippines, her thesis film Pusong Bato (2014) competed at the Busan International Film Festival and won Best Film at the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. Her short film Quadrilaterals (2017) premiered at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival. She is currently working as a freelance director-cinematographer for various production houses in Manila.


