The film, about Spain’s colonial subjugation of the Philippines, is one of the Filipino auteur’s shorter features running ‘only’ 2 hours 31 minutes.

The film, which is playing Out of Competition on the Lido, charts the brutality of Spanish friar Padre Enciso over the population in the 17th century. The synopsis reads: “Spain forcibly transformed the Philippines through sexual violence, exploitation, and religious conversion. Thousands of natives died building 17th-century churches, whose grand architecture stands as monuments to colonization’s brutality.”