Karenina Haniel

While working at an elite country club outside Manila, a 17-year-old Ilocana worker uncovers the violent truths of her workplace, her country, and her own past after attempting to return a lost golf club to the club's president.

Andrés Bonifacio is celebrated as the father of the Philippines Revolution against Spanish colonial rule. This eight-hour epic examines this myth, undertaking an expedition into history through various interwoven narrative threads, held together by an exploration of the individual’s role in history.

The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad, and houses are burned. Ferdinand Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081, putting the entire country under martial law.

A rich young man hires his classmate to pretend to be his girlfriend to appease his father. Though it is meant to be purely a business arrangement, real sparks fly as they spend time together.

The children living in a Philippines ghetto grow up too fast, dealing with the cruel world where they have to be responsible for their own lives. But they have bright, innocent and good dreams in their hearts. The reality on the streets of capitalism is, however, too harsh to hold on to these dreams.

In Frankfurt, Lailani, now 65, awaits a plane to Manila. She's returning home to the Philippines for the first time in 30 years. En route, she delays her return by stopping over in Singapore. Her interactions with her fellow Filipinos help her reflect on the nature of her loss, the cycle of sacrifice and longing that marks them all. Gripped by the fear of returning home to a life she has left behind but is still intricately connected to, she finds moments of enchantment among other lost souls. They've created their ways of living with disenchantment through a Dreamtime that shelters them from the storms of trauma.