Best movies like Empty by Design

Young urban couple Ed and Sarah are set to begin a new life when they move from London into an isolated borders Scottish farmhouse. After falling in love with the 19th century Castle Farm and seeing its potential as a fixer-upper they are anxious to get started on the renovations. In bed on their first night Sarah thinks she can hear noises in the darkness but Ed is disbelieving saying it’s her imagination playing tricks. Persisting in her fear they are not alone in the house, she forces Ed to investigate. When he doesn’t return after a scarily long period, she goes downstairs to investigate only to be confronted by a welcoming committee of masked intruders. As she desperately searches for Ed, a terrifying game of cat and mouse ensues with the mysterious assailants. But what do they want and what horrors do they have planned for the two newcomers?

For Horacia Somorostro, living has become a veritable reclusion perpetua, an imprisonment. Life’s spins and randomness has been very difficult, vicious and inexplicable for her. The year is 1997. Princess Diana dies in a violent car crash. The world is saddened by the death of Mother Theresa. And the Philippines is gripped with fear. It has become the kidnap capital of Asia.

Ira Hayes, a young Pima Indian, enlists in the Marine Corps. At boot camp, he is shunned and mocked by everyone, aside from a Marine named Sorenson, who he befriends. They happen to be two of the six marines captured in the famous photograph of Marines raising the U.S. flag on Suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima, but Sorenson is killed soon after. Although he is hailed as a hero, Ira's life begins to spiral out of control after the war.

In a futuristic theme park, people interact with androids in mafia gangster scenarios, unleashing their deepest violent and sexual desires on the android characters. A new android, called the Outsider, is spontaneously created and begins to hunt one of the computer programmers.

A coming-of-(old)-age story about Peter Anton, an elderly "outsider" artist living in isolated and crippling conditions whose world changes when two filmmakers discover his work and storied past. Shot over eight years, ALMOST THERE documents Anton's first major exhibition and how the controversy it generates forces him to leave his childhood home. Each layer revealed reflects on the intersections of social norms, elder care, and artistic expression.

Two filmmakers try to create a film venturing on the life of Jose Rizal. Before they do that, they try to investigate on the heroism of the Philippine national hero. Of particular focus is his supposed retraction of his views against the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish regime in the Philippines which he expressed primarily through his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The investigation was done mainly by "interviewing" key individuals in the life of Rizal such as his mother Teodora Alonso, his siblings Paciano, Trinidad, and Narcisa, his love interest and supposed wife Josephine Bracken, and the Jesuit priest who supposedly witnessed Rizal's retraction, Fr. Balaguer. Eventually, the two filmmakers would end up "interviewing" Rizal himself to get to the bottom of the issue.

A young, white school teacher is assigned to Yamacraw Island, an isolated fishing community off the coast of South Carolina, populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected children there know so little of the world outside their island.

Lonely Neal attempts to get over a recent break-up by responding to "Missed Connections" ads on Craigslist, then swooping in like a knight in shining armor when the expected guy fails to show up at the scheduled meeting. For a while Neal's plan works great, but when he tries it on Jane, she proves that women are just as crafty as men when it comes to playing the dating game.

An army nurse returning from Afghanistan discovers her purpose in a rural Ohio farm community, along with a deep connection with a neighbor whose conservative Amish sect strictly forbids relationships with those outside his church community.

Lt. Ariel Vergara one of the police officials who handles the Anti-Narcotics Command goes undercover and pretends as an inmate named Turo to befriend a significant illegal Chinese Triad member, Kai. He soon earns the trust of Kai, who hires him as his personal bodyguard. Turo takes advantage to observe the syndicate’s secret ritual, people, operations, and connections. Turo then reports his observations and gathered evidences to Col. Fajardo and Lt. Tam, to seize the Triad’s Philippine sector.

The film OPERATION: GET VICTOR CORPUS, THE REBEL SOLDIER is based on the real-life story of Lt. Victor N. Corpus, a graduate of, and subsequently instructor at, the Philippine Military Academy (PMA, the Philippine equivalent of West Point) who in 1970 defected to the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. When he defected, he led a group of NPA guerrillas in raiding the PMA armory and bringing out high-powered firearms that considerably boosted the guerrilla group's armed strength.

Ray is a Manila cop who travels to Hong Kong on assignment. He searches for his girl friend Lina, and finds her - addicted to drugs. Heung Lan, his ex-partner, is an undercover Hong Kong cop investigating weapons smuggling. She provokes the smugglers by intercepting several shipments in Hong Kong, leading to several good, although brief fights. The drug smuggler kills Lina, and Ray swears vengeance. The head of the gang then returns to the Philippines, and with him, the action shifts back to the Philippines. The lady cop gets more than what she hoped for.

Jamie just called off her engagement from the one person who was supposed to. Makoto ran away to the Philippines to escape the wife who cheated on him two years ago. Their paths cross in Bacolod where they work together and create Ilonggo subtitles for Makoto’s film. Together, as they go through the filmmaking process, they find solace in a friendship they never knew they needed.

The story about a hypnotist whose stage act is to give contrasting personalities to his audience members: but during one of his shows, after hypnotizing ten “victims”, he suffers a stroke and falls into a coma. The question is, then: how are these people supposed to come back to their normal lives?

Odie and his best friend Irene are two outsiders who find a second home in the Philippine underground music scene. The two decide to form a band and put together an unlikely crew that consists of the school bully, an ex-punk-turned-barista, and a former-childstar-turned-band-manager. The film follows their misadventures as they face satanic S&M bands, samurai swindlers, narcissistic rockstars, the pretentious Philippine art community and the freakiest music video auteur ever.

"ANG MGA KIDNAPER NI RONNIE LAZARO" is about a group of down and out-of-luck men who decided to make a film starring Ronnie Lazaro, the most sought-after indie actor in the Philippines. Things get complicated when Lazaro decides to beg-off from acting on their supposed "indie film" and the guys were forced to abduct the actor." - Agimat Project

An ensemble film with five stories of lonely New Yorkers seeking connection through internet personals.

A culinary romance set in Binondo, where Chinese traditions are still very much observed, Mano Po 5: Gua Ay Di is a touching story of how a young Chinese woman fights for the man she loves. She is doomed by strict family traditions to only wed someone of pure Chinese descent. But Charity finds love where she was not supposed to find it... at least according to her cold-hearted mother. Despite being met with resistance by her traditional Chinese family, most especially her mother, Charity continues her relationship with Nathan. Nathan, on the other hand, proves himself and his love to her by making an effort to learn about her background, culture and language resulting into various mishaps, sometimes comical and other times just plain disastrous. Charity finds solace in the kitchen, her cooking interwoven with the story of her ill-fated romance. Will true love prevail in the end? And will she be able to come up with the perfect recipe for love?

Tells the story of five Outsider musicians/artist- who never achieved the fame or fortune they craved, but never gave up trying.

Each morning Donya leaves her tight-knit community of Afghan immigrants in Fremont, California. She crosses the Bay to work at a family-run fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Donya drifts through her routine, struggling to connect with the culture and people of her new, unfamiliar surroundings while processing complicated feelings about her past as a translator for the U.S. government in Afghanistan. Unable to sleep, she finagles her way into a regular slot with a therapist who grasps for prospective role models. When an unexpected promotion at work thrusts Donya into the position to write her own story, she communicates her loneliness and longing through a concise medium: the fortunes inside each cookie. Donya’s koans travel, making a humble social impact and expanding her world far beyond Fremont and her turbulent past, including an encounter with a quiet auto mechanic who could stand to see his own world expanded.

Small-town waitress Tess is swept off her feet by dashing salesman Rico, who marries her and takes her to live on his isolated farm. When Rico goes on a sales trip and leaves her all alone, Tess fights off loneliness by befriending Celia. Suspicions that Celia may be having an affair with her husband soon creep into Tess's mind and threaten her sanity.

Mute young woman Patience, from an isolated community in rural England in 1555, struggles with her controlling brother-in-law and leader, David, who is gradually unraveling after the failure of his idyllic community. The Egyptian Act has been passed, stipulating that all ‘gypsies’ must vacate England immediately and anyone found aiding them could be executed. In exchange for a fee, David agrees to help an Egyptian family who must stay a month on their land until a ship comes to take them away. But when Patience pursues an affair with one of the outsiders, she is thrust into a violent and vicious psychological battle with David.

Tom Chen, an affluent Chinese American, decides to celebrate the anniversary of his divorce with a dinner party. When his intended guests cancel, he impulsively invites the two Mexican day laborers, Javier and Diego, who are working in his yard, to join him instead. But as the three men are settling into the evening, finding connections and differences in their respective American stories, two of Tom’s original guests show up after all, and the resulting clash of cultures and beliefs takes the evening to new heights—and depths—of desire, hedonism, and conflict.

Knowing the past changes the future. Seeking a connection to her heritage, Rebecca Hoffman sets out on a journey of discovery following the deaths of her adoptive parents. She finds that connection with her birth family in the Navajo community. But cultures clash when her husband is rejected as an outsider. Rebecca and her family experience rebirth in a rich culture and renewal as a family in this dramatic film based on the autobiography Looking for Lost Bird by Yvette Melanson (with Claire Safran).

After posting a video of herself robbing a convenience store, Kiya amasses a huge social media following. A reckless loner, she seeks some form of genuine human connection. Through her travels, she encounters a drifter, an Internet troll and a paint huffing outsider who are all pulled into her circle of chaos, junk food, and drugs.

When two outsiders arrive on an isolated intentional community, seventeen-year old Anahita begins to question her role at home, and what a future out in the world-at-large could be.

In the beautiful hills of the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico, a young boy (Emilio) is adopted by the mailman (Teo). As part of their daily tasks, they not only deliver the mail but read letters to the villagers, as well as take dictation, since most are illiterate. Young Emilio quickly learns to read and write but feels saddened by the mostly difficult stories sent by relatives, that moved north to Denver, Colorado in pursuit of a better future. One day Teo becomes disabled and Emilio takes over the mail route and with great imagination, he changes the letters to happy and optimistic stories. Within days, the village is transformed. The elders, once hopeless, lonely and sad, are now happy and enthusiastic, enjoying the "supposed" success their loved ones write from the United States. But the enjoyment is short lived, as they realize that all the wonderful stories are the same...

A family gathers for a happy reunion and marriage announcement on Christmas Day at an isolated mansion in the Philippine mountains only to encounter a series of bizarre, demonic, and tragic events.

Closer to Home weaves a universal, haunting tale of two people inexorably drawn together for vastly different reasons. Dalisay struggles to journey from the Philippine countryside to New York City to marry Dean, a disillusioned ex-merchant marine. She's hoping to buy a cure for her dying sister and, ultimately, a future for her debt-ridden family, while he hopes to escape his disintegrating American family through love and a family of his own. A powerful, controversial film that quietly builds to a shattering collision of aspirations and cultures.

An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.

A lonely city girl finds herself taken hostage by disturbed outsider. Miles from home she must not only escape her captor, but also protect a dark and dangerous secret.

A group of New York City psychics conduct deeply intimate readings for their clients, revealing a kaleidoscope of loneliness, connection, and healing.

From abject poverty to becoming a ten-time boxing world champion, congressman, and international icon, Manny Pacquiao is the true definition of a Cinderella story. In the Philippines, he first entered the ring as a sixteen-year-old weighing ninety-eight pounds with the goal of earning money to feed his family. Now, almost twenty years later, when he fights, the country of 100 million people comes to a complete standstill to watch. Regarded for his ability to bring people together, Pacquiao entered the political arena in 2010. As history’s first boxing congressman, Pacquiao now fights for his people both inside and outside of the ring. Now at the height of his career, he is faced with maneuvering an unscrupulous sport while maintaining his political duties. The question now is, what bridge is too far for Manny Pacquiao to cross?

The Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies, have been both romanticized and vilified in popular culture. Dozens of Roma from 11 countries—including Holocaust survivors, historians, activists, and musicians--bring Romani history to life through poetry, music, and compelling first-hand accounts.

Feeling isolated and lonely, 14-year-old Tanya Kach befriends Tom Hose, a school security guard who lures her to his home. Held captive and abused for 10 years, Tanya eventually finds the courage to take a dangerous step toward freedom.