Currents
The Remotes
John Torres
U.S. Premiere
Manila-based filmmaker John Torres’s ambitious, visually striking sci-fi neo-noir about a mysteriously deadly driver-app functions as a thought-provoking inquiry into the larger forces—political, technological—that conspire to control our bodies and identities.
- Runtime
- 153 min
- Country
- Philippines
- Language
- Tagalog
- Year
- 2026
- More information
- Official film page
Screenings
Manila-based filmmaker, musician, and artist John Torres has constructed an original, visually striking form of neo-noir that combines sci-fi and documentary into a new kind of 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” and the country’s resultant surveillance state, Torres’s drifting, impressionistic film expands and compresses time, allowing its sinister, tragic narrative to gradually emerge from its moody, fog-enshrouded cityscape.
Manila-based filmmaker, musician, and artist John Torres has constructed an original, visually striking form of neo-noir that combines sci-fi and documentary into a new kind of 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” and the country’s resultant surveillance state, Torres’s drifting, impressionistic film expands and compresses time, allowing its sinister, tragic narrative to gradually emerge from its moody, fog-enshrouded cityscape.