Where the Night Stands Still, the debut feature film of Liryc Dela Cruz, is set to world premiere in the Berlin Film Festival’s new Perspectives section, a competition program for first fiction features. THR can now exclusively reveal its first trailer ahead of the 75th edition of the Berlinale.
“After years of separation, three Filipino siblings, all domestic workers in Italy, reunite in the older sister Lilia’s inherited villa,” reads a synopsis. “Their long-awaited reunion stirs old memories and unspoken grievances.” The distance that has grown between them becomes increasingly obvious, “revealing the quiet yet profound marks of absence, longing, and fractured connection,” the synopsis concludes.
“This film is a deeply personal exploration of the silent, corrosive legacy that colonialism has left on the Filipino psyche, its insidious power to fracture not only nations but also families and individuals,” Dela Cruz says about the film. “I am examining how centuries of oppression, displacement, and survival have shaped the intimate dynamics of family, creating spaces where unresolved pain festers in silence.”
Adds the filmmaker: “At its core, this film reflects a deeper, darker truth: when the oppressed internalize the violence of their oppressors, the result can be even more devastating.”
The trailer gives a first glimpse of the film’s black-and-white aesthetics and how little the characters have to tell each other.
Where the Night Stands Still stars Tess Magallanes, Jenny Llanto Caringal, and Benjamin Vasquez Barcellano Jr. It was produced by Pelircula, Ozono, and Il Mio Filippino Collective, with Reckless Natarajan Pictures co-producing. Alpha Violet is handling international sales.
Dela Cruz is an artist and filmmaker from the Southern Philippines and Rome, Italy. In 2023, his exhibition “IL Mio Filippino: For Those Who Care to See” in Rome focused on his multi-year research on “exhaustion, slavery, care, hospitality and colonial history of the Philippines.”
Il Mio Filippino Collective is a collective of Filipino domestic and care workers, artists, community organizers, and members of the diaspora based in Italy. Its mission is “to collaborate, co-create and co-imagine with people and groups who are dedicated to fostering communities of resistance, care, and hospitality.”
Watch the trailer for Where the Night Stands Still below.