Batch '81 by Mike De Leon Now Showing!

Event Date: February 6 (5:45PM); February 7 (4:00PM); February 12 (8:30PM)

Step into the shadows of Alpha Kappa Omega. Gene Siskel Film Center is screening the 4K restoration of BATCH ’81—the film that redefined psychological horror in Philippine cinema.

Opens February 6 | Freshman Sid Lucero (Mark Gil, in his breakout performance), desperately wants to join the Alpha Kappa Omega fraternity. Over the course of a gruelling initiation process, he goes through every humiliation to please his “masters” — even as their treatment veers into increasingly fascistic, cult-like territory. Overt echoes of Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and John Carpenter abound in de Leon’s claustrophobic college drama: a film that subverts expectations by casting college life in a sinister blood-red light.

An urgent reaction to Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law rule at the time, BATCH ’81 burns bright today as de Leon’s angriest and most direct film — asking hard questions about masculinity, indoctrination, free will and the banality of evil, most insidious when disguised as brotherhood, responsibility or duty. Raising uncomfortable truths about class aspirations and privilege in the Philippines — and the world at large — BATCH ’81 is as timely and necessary as it has ever been, presented in its 4K restoration commissioned by the Asian Film Archive and L'Immagine Ritrovata.

Awards & Nominations
1982 Cannes Directors' Fortnight Official Selection

DISCOUNT CODE: SISKELPARTNER at checkout for $5 discount (Applicable to February 6, 2026 show only)

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW