EXCLUSIVE: Filipino director Jun Robles Lana’s HAF project Barber’s Tales has confirmed actress Eugene Domingo in the lead role.

The Filipino star won People’s Choice Best Actress at the Asian Film Awards last year for her performance in the festival-film-send-up The Woman in the Septic Tank.

The second installment in Lana’s small-town trilogy, Barber’s Tales is about a widow defying gender role expectations in the 1970s by running her late husband’s barbershop. She manages to salvage the business after an act of kindness to a local prostitute results in more customers (compelled by the ladies of the night to start frequenting the barbershop for fear of being exposed to their wives.)

Veteran actor Eddie Garcia and Gardo Versoza from Lana’s first small-town film Bwakaw will also feature in Barber’s Tales.

Lana’s Octobertrain Films is producing.