Diamonds in the Sand

White Mulberry Award for Best Debut Film, 2025 Udine Far East Film Festival
First Feature Competition, 2025 BFI London Film Festival
Best Screenplay Award, 2025 QCinema International Film Festival

Filmmakers in attendance. Film program will be followed by Q&A.

Divorced salaryman Yoji has just buried his mother in Tokyo. With few meaningful relationships left, he comes to grips with the realization that he has nothing to live for.

A chance encounter with Minerva, a Filipina migrant worker who appears to sense his sadness, urges him to see his situation in a new way. A former nightclub entertainer, Minerva now works as a caregiver to provide for her only child in the Philippines.

When Yoji discovers the decomposing corpse of his neighbor, an old man whose name he does not know, the death is ruled a kodokushi, or the lonely death. Unwilling to meet the same fate, Yoji throws caution to the wind to follow Minerva to Manila, the capital city of the Philippines.

In Manila, Yoji meets Angel, Minerva’s conflicted 21-year-old daughter. A Japino rejected by her Japanese father, she finds herself at a crossroads post-graduation. Like Yoji, Angel has also just witnessed death, but the kind that’s taking over the seedy parts of Manila.

For all its drawbacks and discomforts, the chaos of the unfamiliar city offers Yoji the promise of life, human connection, and an unpredictable destiny – anything but the dark, silent certainty of kodokushi.

Film Content Advisory: Tobacco, a manga with some mature elements

Credits
Writer: Janus Victoria
Producer: Lorna Tee, Dan Villegas, Masumi Soga
Executive Producer: Maria Sophia Atayde-Marudo, Jossette Atayde, Jim G. Baltazar, Dan Villegas, Antoinette Jadaone, Lorna Tee, Ho Yuhang, Masumi Soga, Manet A. Dayrit, Shozo Ichiyama, Janus Victoria
Director of Photography: Akiko Ashizawa
Editor: Soo Mun Thye
Production Designer: Eero Yves S. Francisco
Composer: Jai Saldajeno
Sound Designer: Corinne De San Jose
Music: Jai Saldajeno