2021 | 1 hr 34 m | Canada | Written and Directed by Martin Edralin
Starring: Rogelio Balagtas, Sheila Lotuatco, Esteban Comilang, Vangie Alcasid
Date: Friday, October 20, 2023
Venue: NYU King Juan Carlos Center | 53 Washington Sq S, NYC 10012
Free and open to the public.
RSVP Link: http://bit.ly/panawin2023f
Synopsis
Joshua (Rogelio Balagtas), a shy Filipino-Canadian immigrant is getting painfully aware of his advancing middle age. He devotes most of his time to caring for his ailing parents, Alma (Esteban Comilang) and Reynaldo (Esteban Comilang), a former Elvis impersonator. A surprise bereavement and a visit by Marisol (Sheilah Lotuatco), a cousin working as a caregiver in the Middle East, induce Joshua to start venturing out of his shell.
Notes on the Film
Like many nondescript, humble-looking Filipinos holding down menial jobs across the world, Island’s protagonist Joshua, as the film reveals, harbors reserves of resilience and grace beneath his quiet heartaches and struggles. The apparent simplicity and modesty of the filmmaking is deceptive. The majority of published reviews of Edralin’s debut feature at its premiere at the SXSW and in succeeding showcases have noted the balancing act and sophisticated control in the telling of the kind of domestic drama prone to wobbling and foundering into sentimentality, melodrama, or banality.
Edralin was born, raised, and educated in Canada but has apparently kept in touch with the culture and values of his immigrant parents. He did in fact first plan to set the film in the Philippines but eventually decided to set it in the world of the Fil-Canadian diaspora.
Edralin has said that he drew on the archetype of the “maiden aunt” who never gains an independent life outside of her parent’s home, but telling the story this time from the less explored perspective of a male in a similar situation. All the cast members were non-actors from whom Edralin, who has cited Ozu as an influence, teased out performances of refreshing, and sometimes bitter, honesty.
The film indirectly touches on the professional tumble that immigrants all too often experience. A dentist in the Philippines, Joshua has not managed to get together the resources and qualifications to practice his old profession and works as a janitor in a spacious university. The arrival of his cousin Marisol, a Philippine caregiver in the Middle East where work conditions are harsher, in an environment littered with instances of physical abuse and rape, delicately adds a layer to the sense of a Philippine diaspora often driven far from their cherished homeland for lack of opportunities under a corrupt political system born out of the country’s arduous history of colonialism and feudalism.
A combination of religion and values imbibed from his parents and community has helped Joshua make peace with his life in lonely anonymity, until he experiences, awkwardly and painfully, the stirrings of the kind of renewed possibilities and energy that has propelled Filipinos to unknown destinies across the world.
Notes on the Director
Toronto-born Martin Edralin honed his narrative and filmmaking skills directing short films and videos, some of which he has admitted to be heavy and humorless. His short film, Hole (2014), won Best Live Action Drama at the Canadian Screen Awards, and jury prizes at the Locarno, Clermont-Ferrand, and Seattle international film festivals. His 2016 short, Emma, was named one of the year’s Top Ten Canadian films by the Toronto International Film Festival in its annual review. These early accomplishments helped him and his Fil-Canadian co-producer Priscilla Galvez get funding from Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch program for Islands, titled as a reference to the Philippine islands as well as a metaphor of individuals as being islands on their own.
– Gil Quito, Curator
Awards
- SXSW – Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Performance (Rogelio Balagtas)
- Calgary International Film Fest – Grand Prize, Emerging Canadian Artist
- Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Fest – Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting
- Toronto Reel Asian International Film Fest – Audience Choice Award
- Available Light Film Fest – Best Canadian Feature Film
