'Come la notte' - the hidden scars of the Filipino community in Italy

BERLIN – “To the hardworking Filipino domestic workers, caregivers and cleaners scattered around the world” is the dedication of Come la notte (Where the Night Stands Still), an Italian-Filipino co-production in competition at the Berlinale in a new section dedicated to first works, Perspectives.

It marks the feature-length film debut of Liryc Dela Cruz, artist of Filipino origins, previously selected as a young emerging filmmaker at the 2020 Berlinale Talents, whose work explores the post-colonial history of the Philippines and the existential and working conditions of a community scattered around the world in a sort of diaspora. It highlights the strong need for self-determination and belonging - territorial, collective and individual - for a people subjected to centuries of oppression, migration and struggle for survival; and notes how the profession of taking care of other people's homes and families has become a widespread and superficial ontological synonym of a false identity, which exerts an oppressive, depersonalizing pressure in favour of an archetype imposed by the foreign country where individuals work and live.

The Brothers Karamazov, King Lear and popular culture from the Filipino community in Italy are references for the film that tells the story of three brothers, all domestic workers, who reunite after years of separation in a villa inherited from their older sister. The long-awaited reunion offers an opportunity to confront the past, and previously unexpressed family memories and resentments begin to emerge. Their story gradually reveals the heavy load they bear of absences, nostalgia, oppression, failure, anger. Their brotherhood is revealed to be a fragile bond which crumbles, allowing a furious explosion of internalized violence that transforms the oppressed into ferocious oppressors.

“The film is an exploration of the silent and corrosive legacy that colonialism has left on the Filipino psyche, its insidious power to fragment not only nations, but also families and individuals,” notes Liryc Dela Cruz. “I wanted to examine how centuries of oppression, displacement and struggle for survival have shaped the intimate dynamics of the family, creating spaces where unresolved pain proliferates in silence. The scars of migration, of always serving in other people’s homes, reveal a fractured sense of belonging, where care is contaminated by resentment and love is inseparable from rancour.”

Filming locations and the Villa, a metaphor for imprisonment

Come la notte is shot in black and white, a stylistic choice that accentuates the characters’ feelings of nostalgia and melancholy. The key filming location was a villa in the province of Trento: Palazzo Malfatti, a historic building in the centre of Vigolo Vattaro, owned by a friend of the director, a long-time Rome resident, and which, as Spazio '500 offers a centre for hospitality, residence and higher education for the arts, entertainment and culture.

The historic building, built on a pre-existing medieval structure but clearly 16th century in style, is a character in itself, an imposing and silent presence, a non-place that connects the entire film whose suspended and static atmosphere reflects the characters’ tension. Long shots linger carefully, highlighting compositions that are often of symmetrical spaces, and details of cross-vaulted and barrel-vaulted rooms, whose European-inspired architecture clearly contrasts with the Filipino roots of the protagonists, becoming a further symbolic expression of their condition of imprisonment in a foreign territory.

Come la notte, synopsis

After years of separation, three Filipino brothers, all domestic workers in Italy, reunite in a villa they have inherited from their older sister Lilia. As night falls, the long-awaited reunion brings back old memories and unexpressed grudges. The air is thick with the weight of everything suppressed over time, as the brothers confront the delicate distance that has grown between them. In the silence of the villa, they struggle with indescribable pain, as their shared history unravels in fragments, revealing silent but profound traces of absence, nostalgia and broken bonds.