“Imbisibol,” a film that “presents a narrative of daily challenges faced by Filipino migrant workers in Japan” (Imbisibol, promotional poster) will be shown during the Sinag Maynila Independent Film Festival 2015 from 18 March to 24 March 2015 in selected SM Cinemas.

The film is based on a one-act play of the same title by Herlyn Gail Alegre, a recent graduate of the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. The play is set in 1992, a time when labor migration to Japan was at its peak. The story happens one afternoon when in the middle of a happy get-together of fellow Filipinos, Rodel, a young newcomer, arrives after committing a crime he did not intend.

Imbisibol was submitted for the Virgin Labfest Year 9, an “annual festival of unpublished, unstaged, untried, and untested” one-act plays that is sponsored by, among others, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (Cultural Center of the Philippines)  Imbisibol was one of the 12 works chosen out of almost 200 entries that year. The following year, it was restaged as part of the revisited works in the Virgin Labfest Year 10.

The film is directed by Lawrence Fajardo and stars Allen Dizon, Bernardo Bernardo, Ces Quesada, and JM de Guzman. It also includes the special participation of Ricky Davao and Cynthia Luster. Like the play, it follows the life of Rodel and three other Filipinos "who are suddenly caught together in an even more complex game of hide and seek where staying invisible is the only way to survive” amidst “threats of arrest and deportation” wherein “friendships are tested, loyalties are questioned, and values are eroded.” (Imbisibol, promotional poster)