Paris-based sales agency Alpha Violet has boarded the international sales for Liryc Dela Cruz’s “Where the Night Stands Still,” which will world premiere in Berlinale’s section for first-time fiction features, Perspectives.
After years of separation, three Filipino siblings, all domestic workers in Italy, reunite in their older sister Lilia’s inherited villa. As the night deepens, their long-awaited reunion stirs old memories and unspoken grievances. The air is thick with the weight of what has been left unsaid over time, as the siblings navigate the distance that has grown between them.
“This film is a meditation on the Filipino experience, how our history of colonization, migration and survival reverberates through the diaspora,” Dela Cruz says. “It examines the delicate interplay of care and estrangement, shaped by a world that has long demanded our resilience. In tracing these fractures, it seeks to uncover the quiet strength and lingering wounds of a people shaped by both history and resistance.”
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“We were quickly impressed by the beauty of the black-and-white image and slowly fell into the storytelling with some of the mysterious intrigues of this film,” Virginie Devesa and Keiko Funato, CEOs of Alpha Violet, state. “Liryc Dela Cruz’s resolute aesthetic sense and open spirit as a migrant from the Philippines seduced us just as deeply.”
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“Where the Night Stands Still” stars Tess Magallanes, Jenny Llanto Caringal and Benjamin Vasquez Barcellano Jr.
It is produced by Pelircula, Ozono and Il Mio Filippino Collective, with co-production by Reckless Natarajan Pictures. Il Mio Filippino Collective is a collective of Filipino domestic and care workers, artists, community organizers and members of the diaspora based in Italy.
Dela Cruz, who was born in the Philippines but lives in Rome, Italy, took part in Berlinale’s talent development program Berlinale Talents in 2020.
