Official selection
Midnight section - Sundance Film Festival 2023
Harbor section - International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023
Official competition - Udine Far East Film Festival 2023
Official competition - Brussels BIFFF 2023
Director
Kenneth Dagatan
Executive Producer
Paulyn Chua, Eric Khoo, Teck Lim
Producer
Bianca Balbuena, Stefano Centini, Junxiang Huang, Bradley Liew
Writer
Kenneth Dagatan
Cast
Angeli Bayani, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, James Mavie Estrella, Beauty Gonzalez, Ronnie Lazaro, Felicity Kyle Napuli, Arnold Reyes
Cinematographer
Russell Morton
Sound Designer
Yi Ling Chen, Eddie Huang
Composer
SiNg Wu
Editor
Ming-Cheng Kao
contact
Amazon Studios
“Gory, glittery and irresistibly bleak... a stylish, ripe contribution to the folk-horror canon”– Leslie Felperin, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
“Excavates historical horrors to unforgettable, gripping, mesmerizing effect”– Mel Valentin, SCREEN ANARCHY
The final days of the Second World War are a dire time in the Philippines. The Americans are closing in and the collapsing Japanese occupation escalates its viciousness. Teenager Tala’s father, a wealthy merchant, has left their isolated rural estate on a dubious venture to secure his family’s safety, while her mother has fallen grievously ill. Food is now scarce, so Tala and her little brother Bayani disobey the household rule and venture into the dark forest beyond the villa. There they find terrible things, grisly hallmarks of war’s toll, but Tala discovers something else in the woods, something otherworldly. In a strange, secluded hut, she comes face to face with a beautiful fairy, whose sorcerous benevolence seems too good to be true...
Horrors can be found as surely in the history books as in the fireside fables handed down through the years. Filipino director Kenneth Dagatan’s second feature film revisits a few of the themes of his 2018 frightener MA — the sick mother, the desperate child, the supernatural entity offering hope at a horrible price. Context is of greater concern this time, as Dagatan nests his gory, gothic nightmare amid the monstrosities war visits on the innocent, in a time and place of perfidy, dread, and desolation. The capable cast, including Jasmine Curtis-Smith (TRANSIT, MIDNIGHT IN A PERFECT WORLD) as the sweet yet sinister fairy, has at its heart a sympathetic turn by teenage actor Felicity Kyle Napuli as Tala. Beautifully shot and elegantly paced, Dagatan’s IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN is a Filipino folk-horror fairy tale to freeze the blood in your veins. – Rupert Bottenberg
Showings
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