The Vancouver International Film Festival has a soft spot for Philippine-made movies. During the lean years of Tagalog films that lasted more than a decade, the VIFF managed to spotlight a movie or two in its Dragons & Tigers program. Last year, there were three selections (Foster Child, Slingshot, Imagine Nation), an indication of the country’s film-production growth.

At this year’s 27th annual edition, there are six features directed by a new generation of maverick Filipino filmmakers utilizing digital technology.

In an interview at the VIFF office, programming associate Mark Peranson said that “the length and strength of the selection reflects the fact that indie production in the Philippines finally hit its stride. This strikes us at VIFF as being the richest period in Filipino film culture since the ’80s heyday. The long-dormant third cinema is very much alive with fresh talents. This year has the highest number of Filipino movies in the festival.”

The selections span a variety of subjects. Serbis, Brillante Mendoza’s Cannes 2008 entry about a subterranean cinema house offering exotic sex services, is the director’s fourth VIFF outing. Altar is Rico Maria Ilarde’s hip take on horror inspired by old Filipino folklore, Catholicism, and devil worship. First-time director Francis X. Pasion’s Jay is a smart, modernist attack on Third World reality–TV culture.

Ronaldo Bertubin’s “(Blink) Kurap” is set in a Manila slum and shot in the distinctive film-noir style established by director Lino Brocka. This film can be taken as a critique on rampant poverty, human debasement, corruption of youth, and loss of innocence.

Years When I Was a Child Outside (Taon Noong ako’y Anak sa Labas) is an avant-garde film essay by John Torres, winner of the VIFF Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema in 2006 for his Todo Todo Teros.

This year, Charliebebs S. Gohetia’s playful creation The “Thank You” Girls, is one of eight nominees up for the award. (The winner will be announced at the Granville 7 screening of Hansel and Gretel next Thursday [October 2].) With this film, Gohetia, Brillante Mendoza’s former editor who is now a director, gives the cult classic Priscilla, Queen of the Desert a Filipino high-camp, low-budget treatment.

Meanwhile, although Tropical Manila is a South Korean production, it was shot in the Philippines and follows a Korean immigrant who, with his Filipina wife and biracial son, is hiding from Korean authorities.