Islands is a 2021 Canadian drama film, written, produced, and directed by Martin Edralin.
[1] The film stars Rogelio Balagtas as Joshua, a Filipino Canadian man in his late 40s who has sacrificed his own happiness to care for his aging parents Alma (Vangie Alcasid) and Reynaldo (Esteban Comilang); following his mother's death, his cousin Marisol (Sheila Lotuaco) comes to visit and offers to help care for Reynaldo, leading Joshua to confront what he really wants in life when he begins to experience misplaced feelings of falling in love with Marisol.
[2] Edralin has described the film as inspired in part by the archetype of the "maiden aunt" who stays with her parents and never marries or builds her own independent life, and by a desire to explore that story from the less familiar perspective of a man in the same situation.
[3] Edralin had originally planned to set the film in the Philippines, but subsequently decided to tell it as a story about Filipino immigrants in Canada.
With just a short film to his name prior to joining Islands, the Winnipeg actor delivers an honest, stripped-down performance so real that it seems lifted from a documentary.