World premiere
Sisa
Her silence was survival. Her madness, a weapon. Her mission: revenge.
The Philippines, 1902. The land is raw, wounded, occupied. Smoke clings to the trees. Blood soaks the soil. The war is over – but the violence lingers. Widows fill the villages. Mothers vanish into silence. Among them walks Sisa (Hilda Koronel), barefoot and broken, dismissed as mad by those who fear what they don't understand. But madness is only the surface.
Beneath the rags and ramblings, Sisa hides a secret: she is a spy. A survivor. A mother robbed of everything but rage. Haunted by visions she cannot silence, she begins to lead a quiet revolt – gathering women who, like her, have been pushed to the margins. As betrayal coils around her, Sisa walks the line between memory and madness, asking what it takes to rise when the world has already buried you.
Returning to Tallinn after his acclaimed “About Us But Not About Us”, Jun Robles Lana shifts from the intimate to the epic. With his signature emotional precision and a searing performance by Hilda Koronel, “Sisa” is both a historical thriller and an urgent elegy.
Milani Perera
Jun Robles Lana (1972) is a graduate of the University of Santo Tomas with a degree in Communication Arts. He is the youngest Filipino to be inducted into the Palanca Literary Awards (Philippine’s Pulitzer Prize) Hall of Fame. His debut screenplay "In the Navel of The Sea" directed by his mentor Marilou Diaz-Abaya premiered at the 1998 Berlin International Film Festival and also won him the Best Screenplay Award from the 1998 Brussels Independent Film Festival. His first indie film "Bwakaw" won several international awards and was screened at Toronto, New York and Tokyo film festivals and was the Philippines’ Oscar entry for Best Foreign Film in 2012. "Kalel, 15" won him the Best Director Award from PÖFF in 2019. Since then, Jun Robles Lana has delighted PÖFF audiences almost every year, with "The Big Night" screening in 2021 and "About Us But Not About Us" in 2022, which won the Best Film Award in the Critics' Picks Competition.
Filmography:
Gigil (2006), My Neighbor's Wife (2011), Bwakaw (2012), Mga kuwentong barbero (Barber's Tales, 2013), Haunted Mansion (2015), Die Beautiful (2016), Ang dalawang Mrs. Reyes (2018), Ang babaeng allergic sa wifi (The Girl Allergic to WiFi, 2018), The Panti Sisters (2019), Unforgettable (2019), Kalel, 15 (PÖFF 2019), Big Night (Suur öö, PÖFF 2021), About Us But Not About Us (Meist, kuid mitte ainult, PÖFF 2022)
Grand Prix for The Best Film, grant of 20 000 euros from the city of Tallinn, Award for Best Director, grant of 5000€ from Alexela
