A ruthless workplace cover-up by a powerful family throws a nun into existential crisis in this mysterious, meditative drama, beautifully lensed in island greenery and candlelight.
Robinson underlines the tranquil, unvarying life of the convent through his measured pacing and eye for the countryside that surrounds it.
First Light 2025
Slow-burn intrigue and questions of faith and corruption are at the heart of Australian-Filipino director James J. Robinson’s impressive feature debut.
It’s shot with moody elegance in and around a centuries-old mountain convent in the Philippines built by Spanish missionaries, where candles are the only reliable light source, and bats in the tower have been causing disquiet. The nuns have taken the night visitors as an omen the environment is out of balance, a feeling Sister Yolanda (Ruby Ruiz) cannot ignore as she’s plunged into the midst of brutal damage control by an influential local family after a construction site accident.
When Yolanda is called to deliver last rites to the injured worker in his hospital bed, the strange circumstances around his death jolt her to investigate. She has been mentoring an initiate to take vows, but now faces a crisis of her own. Finding no bottom to the hypocrisy and exploitation with which the privileged shore up their positions in the persistent shadow of colonial repression, she must reevaluate her own red lines and beliefs.
- Carmen Gray