Baler is Viva Films' official entry to the 34th Metro Manila Film Festival, starring Anne Curtis and Jericho Rosales and directed by Mark Meily. The film is based on the historical event known as the Siege of Baler, where 57 Spanish soldiers held fort in the town of Baler for almost one year during the final moments of the Spanish occupation in the Philippines. Baler has won the festival's best picture award among seven other major awards. In 1898, a band of Spanish soldiers heroically defended Baler (which would later be the capital municipality of Aurora in 1951) against Filipino forces for 337 long and grueling days. Filipino barrio lass Feliza (Anne Curtis) and Filipino-Spanish soldier Celso (Jericho Rosales) are caught in a forbidden love, torn apart by the societies they came from. Feliza's father Nanding (Philip Salvador) is an anti-Spanish government fighter, which puts pressure on the young couple to keep their relationship a secret. Outnumbered and out-gunned by the Indios they once governed and abused, the Spanish soldiers in Baler, including Celso and buddy Lope (Mark Bautista), are now forced to hole up in a church as they wait for non-existent military reinforcements to rescue them from the band of Filipinos who have now surrounded them and are waiting for their surrender.