Quezon!
Start right off with a caveat: not a historian, merely a student of film. I can talk of storytelling and visual style, but of historical facts about the period and details of the man himself? At most I can repeat what I've found through online research, perhaps hazard a few inexpert opinions based on what I've read.
Jerrold Tarrog's Quezon (2025) begins in quietly spectacular fashion, taking its cue from the film that inspired many an aspiring director, Welles' Citizen Kane: a silent short depicting the younger Quezon (Benjamin Alves) during the Philippine-American War; for the rest of the running time fictional journalist Joven Hernando (Cris Villanueva) dogs Quezon's heels, digging into and commenting on the man's life the way Jerry Thompson dug into and commented on Charles Foster Kane. Tarog with cinematographer Pong Ignacio (who lensed the previous two installments of the director's period epic) employs the kind of sweeping camera movements Welles used in his second feature The Magnificent Ambersons, or Bertolucci in 1900 or-- to name a model closer to home-- Peque Gallaga in his wartime drama Oro Plata Mata (mind you, I'm not ranking Mr. Tarog as equal to Welles or even Bertolucci, just citing influences).
