“Just keep driving.” Our friends at The Film Stage have unveiled the first trailer for the film The Remotes, an intriguing Filipino sci-fi mystery thriller made by filmmaker John Torres based in Manila. This played at the New York Film Festival and it also played a TIFF this fall. The intro explains: “Fashioned in part as a response to the Philippines’ longtime president Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ and the country’s resultant surveillance state, Torres’s drifting, impressionistic film expands and compresses time…” Called a sinister “sci-fi-tinged neo-noir”, the film follows a grieving detective who investigates two sisters linked to a sinister navigation app, only to find himself slowly surrendering to the unseen voices controlling the city and his own lingering sorrow. Starring Alchris Galura, Gabby Padilla, Julia Richards, and Enchong Dee. Director John Torres adds: “The Remotes is about how longing can become infrastructure. How grief stifles us while technology listens in & automates our choices in life. It is a world where people willingly surrender to it because it brings them closer to someone they lost, or someone they used to be.” Yep that sounds pretty sad and this looks pretty good – especially for fans of slow cinema and experimental art house genre films.
Here’s the festival trailer (+ poster) for John Torres’ sci-fi film The Remotes, from YouTube (via TFS):
Via NYFF: “Manila-based filmmaker, musician, artist John Torres has constructed an original, visually striking form of neo-noir that combines sci-fi & documentary into a new stylistic blueprint. Following a cop in mourning one year after his wife was killed in a mysterious driver-app-related auto accident, and his telepathic sister-in-law, whose recorded voice might hold a clue to the case, The Remotes is a thought-provoking inquiry into the larger forces—political, technological—that conspire to control our bodies and identities. Fashioned in part as a response to the Philippines’ longtime president Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ & the country’s resultant surveillance state, this drifting, impressionistic film expands & compresses time, allowing its sinister, tragic narrative to gradually emerge in its moody, fog-enshrouded cityscape.“
The Remotes is directed by Manila-based Filipino filmmaker John Torres, director of the films Todo todo teros, Taon noong ako’y anak sa labas, Ang ninanais, Lukas the Strange, & People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose previously, plus many other short films. The screenplay is written by Dodo Dayao & John Torres. Produced by Sherad Sanchez, Shireen Seno, John Torres. This premiered at the 2026 Toronto & New York Film Festivals this fall. No release date is set yet – stay tuned for updates. Who wants to watch?
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