Busan’s Asian Project Market has selected “Heaven Help Us,” a politically charged drama from Filipino director Eve Baswel that confronts one of the darkest chapters in the country’s cultural history: the 1981 collapse of the Manila Film Center. The project is produced by John Torres, Jules Katanyag, and Danzen Santos Katanyag, with the team aiming to secure international partners, co-production support and pre-sales at the market.
Baswel said she was compelled to tell the story after connecting her own experiences in the precarious labor force with the workers who lost their lives during construction of the center. “Workers died building what was meant to be a showcase for the elite’s film festival, and the Marcos regime’s alleged response was to pour cement over the victims and proceed with the event. This image – the literal burial of the working class for the sake of spectacle – became deeply embedded in my consciousness,” she said. Her vision focuses not on the supernatural tales long associated with the site, but on the systemic injustices that forced workers into unsafe conditions.
The film frames itself as both drama and historical revisionism, rejecting sensationalism to center the human cost of the tragedy. “The dominant narrative has either sensationalized the event through ghost stories or allowed it to fade into historical footnotes,” Baswel noted. “The film challenges the sanitized version of history that buries inconvenient truths along with the victims.”
Producer John Torres said the project resonates strongly today. “The Marcoses are back in power, and we as a nation have a second chance to look into the gaps in our knowledge. This project is one of many that can ask the tough questions about our family and the community we live in,” he said. Torres described Baswel’s approach as anachronistic and poetic, combining elements of the 1980s with present-day references: “Although it may feel like the eighties, other elements point to the present—a ghost of our past that appears in the news and now on the big screen.”
For producer Jules Katanyag, the role is both creative and structural. “I see myself as a partner to Eve in excavating ideas from her creative consciousness, helping her interrogate and refine the connections she makes, and guiding the authenticity and value of the choices she undertakes in the writing,” Katanyag said. “It’s about creating a safe space for discovery, while also making sure the story we craft has both emotional truth and cinematic power.”
Danzen Santos Katanyag emphasized the project’s international ambitions: “As Filipino producers, our main goal in presenting ‘Heaven Help Us’ at the APM is to showcase its strong cross-cultural appeal and secure co-production partners, financing, pre-sales and development support to bring the project forward. I hope to connect with producers, festival directors, investors and buyers who value Asian stories with universal resonance.”
The producing team also underscored the film’s potential impact. “From a producer’s perspective, what excites me most about ‘Heaven Help Us!’ is its ability to tell a very local, deeply Filipino experience within themes that are also universal: faith, morality, mortality, human rights, greed and survival in this changing world,” Danzen said. Jules added: “Across the Philippines and around the world, we’re seeing renewed outrage over corruption scandals. ‘Heaven Help Us’ can act as a kind of beacon… reminding us that these tragedies from the past, elsewhere in space and time, are all connected.”
