Sunshine

Sunshine is good at rhythmic gymnastics and is preparing for the national team tryout. A few days before it she learns she is pregnant. Abortion is banned in the Philippines; there is no legal route. She tries to reach someone selling illegal pills, and on that journey meets a strange girl who thinks and talks exactly as she does. Antoinette Jadaone writes and directs. Maris Racal plays Sunshine. It had its world premiere at the Toronto film festival in 2024 and won the Crystal Bear for best film in the Generation 14plus section at the Berlin film festival in 2025. Its second subject is sport. The conditions in which young people training for a national team work, the impossibility of it, and the way one injury or one delay ends the whole plan, all sit inside the narrative. The realist tone breaks at one point and a fantastic element enters; that is the film's most argued decision. Antoinette Jadaone was known for romantic comedies, and this is a change of genre for her. Who it is for: viewers who follow Southeast Asian independent cinema and social drama told through young women. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the narrative offers no resolution, and the fantastic element does not sit with the realist frame everywhere.