Director: Shireen Seno
Runtime: 89 min
Country: Philippines
Language: Filipino, Tagalog with English subtitles
Rating: NC16 (Sexual Scene)

BEST FIRST FILM
Lima Independiente Festival
Internacional de Cine 2013

Set in 1950s Philippines, Big Boy is an unconventional coming-of-age tale about Julio, a boy whose family forces him to grow up—not emotionally, but physically. So that their growth serum business may flourish, Julio’s family grooms him into its poster boy by routinely dosing him with the stuff (really just fish oil), stretching his body from both ends every day, and having him stand in the sun in a crucifix-like pose. Shot on Super 8, this imaginary home movie upends the interrelated notions of Philippine national progress and the close-knit Filipino family by rendering them  as myths, the film’s aura of faux nostalgia being suggestive of the violence in those attempts to affirm them as real.