The Filipino film MATANGTUBIG (A TOWN IN A LAKE) is not your average Fantasia Film Festival fare. There is no gore, no post-apocalyptic sci-fi or zombies. What you will get is a FANTASTIC film that serves as a great example of how less is more. That is something I have come to expect from Fantasia Film Festival and this film lives up to the festivals standard of exemplary film-making.

When a girl is murdered and another goes missing in the quiet town of Matangtubig, it attracts media and political attention from the big city.  This clashes in more ways than one with the simpler life lived by the townspeople. As time passes, search parties are created, journalists dig deeper and there ends up to be more questions than answers. Who holds the key to these answers? A witness who has a big decision to make that could change life as they know it in this seaside town.

This film is a beautiful collision of art house cinema and a slow-burn crime thriller. Its visually stunning and creates an incredibly eerie yet beautiful character out of the town of Matangtubig itself. Some of the most intense, scary and beautifully acted scenes have no dialogue at all. Its a haunting and gorgeous film that I recommend highly.

” A beautifully crafted and haunting slow-burn crime thriller”