A FILM about a cranky old woman who wants to die but whose neighbors wouldn’t let her won the top prize at the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino awards night on Sept. 15 at One Esplanade in Pasay City.

LOLA IGNA by the acclaimed filmmaker Eduardo Roy, Jr. got the Best Picture and Best Screenplay (with Margarette Labrador as co-writer) awards for this year’s Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino. Its lead, the theater stalwart Angie Ferro, as the eponymous Lola Igna, won for Best Actress. Ms. Ferro, age 82, plays a 118-year-old woman who lives alone in a bamboo hovel without any indoor plumbing, amidst the rice fields of a fictitious rural barrio. Despite its deceptively bucolic setting, the film deals with such sobering topics as aging alone (because you have outlived most of your loved ones and friends), death, abandonment, and the narcissism of today’s youth.

PHILIPPINE CINEMA is 100 years old and despite challenges in the industry, it is time to celebrate.

WELLINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO — New Zealand will be home again to hairy feet and pointed-ear Hobbits after Amazon Studios confirmed the Pacific country will be the location for its new The Lord of the Rings series, a TV show widely tipped to be the most expensive ever made.

HBO Max, the upcoming streaming service from AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia, has secured exclusive five-year streaming rights in the United States to all 12 seasons of comedy hit The Big Bang Theory

LOS ANGELES — Cars front man Ric Ocasek died peacefully over the weekend while recovering from surgery at his family’s home in Manhattan, his wife, the actress and model Paulina Porizkova, said in an Instagram post on Monday.

“What is the cost of a few words when a life hangs in the balance?” Doctor Tambourri, who is airing for the terminally ill Fosca, asks the young soldier Giorgio Bachetti in Stephen Sondheim’s one-act operetta, Passion.

It’s Robert’s (fondly called Bobby) 35^th birthday! And his friends — five couples and three girlfriends — are waiting for him to show up at his surprise birthday party. He is the only bachelor among them. Will he wish to finally find the one? Or to stay content and happy as a bachelor? Is he really ready for commitment?

SEPTEMBER 19 marks 70 years since Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Spring (Banshun) was first released, in 1949. The film is the first entry in his “Noriko Trilogy” (quintessential Ozu muse Setsuko Hara playing single or widowed character named Noriko), and the first masterpiece of his late period (rigorous pared-down style, soft-spoken focus on domestic tensions).

INDEPENDENT bookstore Kwago and co-working and event space Warehouse Eight, Komura are organizing the first Black and White zine fair on Sept. 21, 2019, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. at Warehouse Eight, Makati.

5 films to see on the week of September 20 — September 26, 2019

AN OFT-REPEATED legend about Queen Marie Antoinette of France is that when she was told that the people had no bread, she replied, “Then let them eat cake.” The phrase has gone down in history as a marker of the indifference that the wealthy give to the poor.