Sunshine

Crystal Bear, 2025 Berlin International Film Festival, Generation 14plus
Official Selection, 2024 Toronto International Film Festival

Her name is Sunshine, and she’s on the verge of making the Philippine Olympic team as a rhythmic gymnast. The personal, national, and filial glory come crashing down with the unwanted discovery that Sunshine is also pregnant. Her struggle for a solution forward reveals society’s deep-rooted lengths to hold her back, when suddenly Sunshine is mysteriously met by a strange little girl with a knack for being wherever Sunshine happens to be.

Maris Racal navigates the title role with a dire grace. What hurts most, as director Antoinette Jadaone (Fan Girl, Spring Showcase ’21) spellbindingly ensures we know and feel, is that no part of Sunshine’s story is inconceivable at all. The external pressures surrounding abortion in Manila beat down like a biblical whipping. The internal fears which result bear the same textured scars as a nation touched by Catholicism as a colonial tool. But real choices and real beliefs are rooted in compassion, something Sunshine won’t ever let us forget.

–Cheyenne Paiva