Come la Notte (Where the Night Stands Still)

Film Screening and a conversation with the film director Liryc Dela Cruz and Uoldelul Chelati Dirar, NYU Lecturer

Synopsis
After years of separation, three Filipino siblings, all domestic workers in Italy, reunite in their older sister Lilia’s inherited villa. As the night deepens, their long-awaited reunion stirs old memories and unspoken grievances. The air is thick with the weight of what has been left unsaid over time, as the siblings navigate the delicate distance that has grown between them. In the stillness of the villa, they wrestle with an unnameable ache, their shared history unfolding in fragments, revealing the quiet yet profound marks of absence, longing, and fractured connection.

Director’s Statement
This film is a deeply personal exploration of the silent, corrosive legacy that colonialism has left on the Filipino psyche, its insidious power to fracture not only nations, but also families and individuals. Through the story of three siblings, all domestic workers in Italy, I wanted to examine how centuries of oppression, displacement, and survival have shaped the intimate dynamics of family, creating spaces where unresolved pain festers in silence.
The villa where the siblings reunite is a symbolic extension of their entrapment within a foreign world that has imposed its architecture upon their lives. The distances between them are not just physical, they are the echoes of an unspoken history that haunts them. The scars of migration, of always serving in someone else’s home, reveal a fractured sense of belonging, where care is tainted by resentment, and love is inseparable from bitterness.
At its core, this film reflects a deeper, darker truth: when the oppressed internalize the violence of their oppressors, the result can be even more devastating. Colonialism’s most sinister legacy is how it twists pain into power, turning those who have suffered into unwitting vessels of harm. The siblings’ unraveling is not simply the result of their own personal failings, but a symptom of a much larger, more pervasive evil; one that transforms victimhood into a weapon.
The most tragic outcome of this legacy is when the oppressed, scarred by years of struggle, unknowingly become agents of the very oppression they once fought against. This film serves as a cautionary tale, a reminder that the wounds inflicted by history do not disappear; they can mutate, turning inward, poisoning even our closest relationships. If we do not confront this cycle, the pain of the past will continue to claim new victims, sometimes even at our own hands.

(75 minutes, black & white, 2025 – Italy and the Philippines, world sales by Alpha Violet)

Winner of Asian Best New Talent Award for Best Director
25th Shanghai International Film Festival
Best Artistic Achievement 38th Bolzano International Film Festival
Special Mention 43rd Bellaria Film Festival

“Highlighted among promising new names… Liryc Dela Cruz offered Where the Night Stands Still.” — Sight and Sound

“Finely acted, elegantly executed and seemingly undemonstrative…A rising directorial talent.” — Screen International

“With a contemplative gaze on the human journey, Where the Night Stands Still invites us to ponder how echoes of past experiences reverberate through our future decisions.” — Universal Cinema