Liway

Kip Oebanda's 2018 Filipino film is set in a detention camp during the period of martial law. A mother does not tell her son what the place is; instead she invents stories and turns the camp into a world of fable. The tension comes from the boy growing older. As his questions multiply the invented stories stop being enough; the narrative also opens the mother's past slowly and shows how she came to be there. The director is telling his own family's story, and that shapes the film's details. Glaiza de Castro leads. Rather than explain the political background, the narrative chooses to keep the child's point of view. Who it's for: those who follow Filipino cinema and narratives of the martial law period. Who it's not for: viewers who want to learn the political history; the film does not give the context in detail.