Trivia

Writer/Curator Tony Rayns selected Altar (2007) as the first Filipino genre film to screen at the Dragons and Tigers section of the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2008. He also conducted a Q and A with Ilarde after the screening.

First Filipino filmmaker to win Best Feature Film in an international fantastic film festival, for Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Beneath the Cogon) at the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre, Argentina in 2005.

Ilarde's films have screened at the Sitges Film Festival (Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya) in Catalan, Spain on three occasions: Ang Babaeng Putik in 2006, Dugo ng Birhen: El Kapitan in 2008, and Pridyider in 2013.

Ilarde has attended the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) in Puchon, Korea twice: for the sci-fi-actioner Killdroid (with producer Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro) in 2008, and the erotic-horror-thriller Tusok: The Avenger in 2013. Both films are still unproduced.

Former Executive Director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Roger Garcia, co-produced Ilarde's Beneath the Cogon (2005) through his film production outfit Modern Films. Modern Films was originally housed at producer Saul Zaentz's iconic Fantasy Building in Berkeley, California, where Garcia was based.

Screened two films, Beneath the Cogon (2005) and Altar (2007), at the Hungry Ghosts section of the 38th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2009. Curated by Gertjan Zuilhof.

Known to painstakingly storyboard every frame in his films via hand-drawn panels.

Ilarde played the Thai Cop who handcuffs martial-arts icon Richard Norton in the climax of chop-socky, B-film Rage (aka Death Fight) (1994). He was an Associate Producer in the film. Norton's co-star Karen Moncrief eventually became a filmmaker in her own right directing Sundance Festival entry Blue Car (2002). Moncrief has also successfully transitioned to directing limited series content, helming episodes of Six Feet Under (2003) and 13 Reasons Why (2018).

Ilarde has worked with two members of the Philippine National Taekwondo team: action icon Monsour del Rosario in Blood of the Virgin: El Kapitan (1999), and Eugie Rodriguez in Beneath the Cogon (2005). The two formerly world-ranked jins studied under different mentors- Del Rosario under the tutelage of Korean Grandmaster Sung-Chon Hong, while Rodriguez was mentored by Filipino Master Paul Cabatingan.

In 2023, the German company, True Grit, released a special-edition "Uncut" version of Ilarde's very first feature, Z-Man (1988), on DVD, dubbed in German. Soon after, Amazon Prime Germany made the title available on its streaming platform. Z-Man was a feature film version of Ilarde's black and white, 16MM college short of the same title, shot in the suburbs of Contra Costa County in the Bay Area, USA. The 35MM feature film version was originally acquired by Robbie Little of Overseas Filmgroup. Little, a respected, pioneering figure in independent cinema, had started his career by being one of the early distributors of Bruce Lee's Hong Kong films.