MANILA, Philippines ? A new breed of Philippine film makers is using the country's social ills as inspiration, transforming real-life tales of corruption, violence and abuse into award-winning movies internationally.

With digital technology and the Internet levelling the playing field, Filipino indie directors have become a staple on the world's film festival circuits, helping ignite a new golden age in the local industry.

For Pepe Diokno, indie films are a vehicle to promote change in a country where corruption is rife and a third of the 92 million population live in crushing poverty.

The 23-year-old exudes a passion for his craft that belies his easy demeanor, and his debut movie tackling alleged state-sponsored 'death squads' is something no ordinary university student would take on.

"There is a wealth of stories around us and I think one of the responsibilities of a film maker is to record what is happening around him," Diokno told AFP.

"Tomorrow, or 40 or 50 years from now, somebody will see the film and say: 'So that was how it was'."

Called "Engkwentro" (Clash), Diokno's film won the New Horizon's section of the Venice Film Festival last year, and critics have dubbed him the new enfant terrible of Philippine cinema.

The movie was based on the real life story of two brothers who were involved with local gangs and on the hit list of a 'death squad' that was allegedly backed by a powerful town mayor in a southern city.

"What unsettled me was, I didn't know anything about this at first. But what really angered me is that it is happening and the people are accepting this reality," he said.

Diokno said showing the public that 'death squads' existed became a personal crusade, and an eye opener that movies could be a powerful tool for society.

"It was a story that needed to be told," said Diokno, a prodigy with a self-deprecating manner who made "Engwentro" while he was still at film school.

He is also the grandson of the late senator Jose Diokno, a nationalist who fought Ferdinand Marcos at the height of his brutal martial law regime in the 1970s.

However Diokno said he wanted to be known on his own terms, and not as the grandson of one of the nation's most revered human rights activists.

Diokno is now preparing to shoot his second film that explores the world of 'child warriors' employed by the country's rebel groups.

Meanwhile, Jim Libiran, 42, another director who made headlines overseas recently with a gritty social movie, is also working on a second film.

The ex-journalist's first movie in 2007 about gang life in Manila's notorious Tondo slum cultivated a cult following and jolted public consciousness about the issue.

The movie, called "Tribu" (Tribe), received critical acclaim at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2008, and in the same year won the Le Pari de L?Avenir (Youth Jury Prize) at the Paris Cinema Festival.

His follow up movie, which is also being shot in Tondo, is called "Happyland" and tells a story of priests using football to lure the youth away from the gang culture.

"I only have one genre -- truth. I do not want to make films not based on reality," Libiran told AFP.

"The best stories told are the truth, in much the same way that the best time for journalists is when they gather every night and talk about their exploits."

Another member of the Philippines' batch of power indie film makers is Brillante Mendoza, who last year won best director at Cannes for "Kinatay", a violent movie about a newly wed policeman forced to take part in the kidnapping and murder of a woman.

A barrage of movies shown in the local Cinemalaya Film Festival last month also tackled sensitive issues -- from the country's decades old Muslim separatist rebellion to human trafficking.

Leading critic and film historian Lito Zulueta said indie fims were part of an exciting Philippine cinema renaissance.

"The recent vibrancy of Philippine cinema has led film and cultural historians to proclaim a third golden age, after the 1950s and 1970s," said Zulueta, who is the former chair of Manila's movie critics' association.

Critics had long lamented the state of the Philippine movie industry, which was known for churning out low-quality films with generally weak plots and little social substance.

A high tax on cinema tickets and rampant movie piracy were other factors that critics said brought the Philippine movie industry close to its death bed.

Zulueta said the current crop of indie film makers had helped create a buzz that could not be ignored.

"You see the creative outpouring in indie cinema and you realise Philippine cinema can't really be dying," he said.

"It's on a transition. It's on to something new."