Hot on the heels of an award-winning festival run for his last film Birdshot, Filipino director Mikhail Red is already hard at work on his third feature, Neomanila. Set in the deadly world of the drug war raging through contemporary Manila, the film follows Toto, a teenage orphan, as he is recruited into a notorious death squad. The gang's matriarch, Irma, becomes a surrogate mother figure to the boy, but when their next target is revealed to be a familiar face, loyalties will be put to the test.
Fast becoming one of the most exciting young voices in Filipino cinema, Red's work, including his 2013 debut Rekorder, fuses genre elements with bold social commentary, and Neomanila looks to be continuing that trend. Check out the first teaser trailer below.