“Isa ka Pungpong nga Rosas” (“A Bouquet of Roses”) is memory & threshold: a modern love story of one woman’s trauma with men & her way to healing brought by a companionship of a queer acquaintance, a potential lover. It reckons with old-age and patriarchal notions of virginity — there has to be blood on the first sexual encounter — and psychological ghosts of sexual abuse manifesting as self-abasement. This is the core of the 1997 Palanca award-winning short story of the same title by retired University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) professor Alice Tan Gonzales, adapted into a distilled screenplay with crisp dialogue in Hiligaynon-English by another award-winning UPV professor Kevin Piamonte, to the directorial debut of assistant professor Julie Prescott. With seasoned cinematographer, editor, and colorist Ruperto Quitag, together with Gian Niño Genoveza, this film in 43.34 minutes is elegant, tender, and polished.