Sunod

Sunod
t.l. Seguita

The Philippines, 2019, 106’, Tagalog, English
Directed by: Carlo Ledesma
Script: Anton Santamaria
Photography (color): Mycko David
Editing: Gino delos Reyes
Art Direction: Ericson Navarro
Music: Robbie Factoran, Ricardo Jugo, Arnold Buena
Production Companies: TEN17P, Globe Studios (The Philippines) 
Cast: Carmina Villarroel (Olivia Sazon), Mylene Dizon (Karen Liboro), Susan Africa (Perla), JC Santos (Lance), Kate Alejandrino (Mimi), Krystal Brimner (Annelle), Rhed Bustamante (Nerisa) 

Date of First Release in Territory: December 25th, 2019 (Metro Manila Film Festival)   
Premiere status: International Premiere


Olivia Sazon is a single mother who would do anything for her young daughter, Annelle. Despite having a good education, some decisions she made in her  early-twenties brought her to a lower-middle class life. Even more unfortunate, Annelle is suffering from a congenital heart disease and requires multiple hospital confinements and surgery. To afford the high medical costs, Olivia decides to apply for a call center job at the Liboro Global Outsourcing (LGO) company, a new BPO located on the top floor of an old Manila building undergoing renovation called Liboro House. Olivia is accepted into LGO and immediately starts training for her new job. However, things don’t go as easy as she thought ,as she fails a test by the company’s strict and no-nonsense Chief Operating Officer, Karen Liboro. She also meets a nice man, Lance, the team leader, who is supposed to help her in the daily challenges of the company…

While Olivia starts to succeed at work, odd events affects her life in a more troubling way. One night, by chance,  Olivia encounters Nerisa, a ten-year old girl lost in the restroom. As soon as Olivia tries to help that girl, strange things begin to happen in the office. Then, it’s getting worse for Olivia, as these attempts to help the little Nerisa has in fact put her own daughter in more danger. A chain of strange events start to develop in that looming atmosphere. She begins seeing the girl (Nerisa) in her dreams. On her side, Annelle, despite being miraculously healed of her affliction, has also bouts of strange behavior, like she is no longer herself. Worst of all, Olivia’s only male friend at the Company, Lance, tries to sexually assault her in exchange for helping her to pay for Annelle’s expensive medical bills. Olivia takes all the horror and abuse for the sake of her daughter, but things are still about to turn from horrible to sinister. One night, Olivia discovers that Lance had in fact died in the old basement of the Liboro House, the circumstances of which make her believe it has something to do with what happened between her and the team leader. At the same time, Karen tries to keep LGO running, but her father and company owner, Jaime Liboro, suddenly orders a complete shutdown of the operations. This propels both Karen and Olivia to do their own investigations, until they can shed some light on the mysteries of the building with so many dark secrets…

Sunod is Carlo Ledesma’s most notable film after The Tunnel (filmed in Australia in  2011). It’s distinct from the other “regular” horror movies made in the Philippines in the sense  it works more on the atmosphere (beautifully cinematographed by Mycko David) than on the sensational scary effects which are usually overdone in most of the recent horror films. Also to be noted that the story (by Anton Santamaria) is set in a family business which has some links with the social reality in the Philippines, where the call centers are quite common, with  minimum wages and social security for the employees. So, although Sunod is superficially a genre movie, the way it shows the relationship between the characters inside the LGO company can also be apprehended as a metaphor on a certain kind of business, with all kinds of mysteries and  shades between the living characters (and the dead ones…). An unusual “horror” film which should be noted for its originality in the theme and treatment in this particular context. 


Carlo Ledesma is an award-winning filmmaker with a career that spans over fifteen years in film, radio, theater, and television. He is more widely known as the director of the Australian horror film The Tunnel and the recent Filipino suspense/horror film Sunod. In 2007, his short film The Haircut was awarded the Mini Movie Channel Award for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival. The prize money from that enabled Carlo to produce his next project in 2009, The Last One, a 30-minute action drama. Sunod, his latest film to date, has attracted a lot of attention at the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) in 2019/20.  

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2007 – The Haircut (short)
2009 – The Last One (short)
2011 – The Tunnel 
2012 – Fire Dance (short)
2016 – Saving Sally
2019 – Sunod