A left-behind daughter confronts her distant relationship with her father by interweaving personal and collective memories from cassette tapes recorded by Filipino overseas workers in the 1980s and 1990s.
Filmmaker Demie’s father, Manuel, left in 1988 for Saudi Arabia to earn a better income but missed his children’s crucial formative years. Far from home, Manuel’s presence was felt only through his voice on cassette tapes he sent back while working overseas.
In the present, Demie feels emotionally distant from him. Hoping to reconnect, she searches for the tapes, only to find that her family’s recordings are all gone. She turns to gathering tapes from other families, slowly assembling an informal archive of emotions and anecdotes shaped by separation and longing, recorded across an entire generation of Filipino overseas workers and their families.
In the present, Demie feels emotionally distant from him. Hoping to reconnect, she searches for the tapes, only to find that her family’s recordings are all gone. She turns to gathering tapes from other families, slowly assembling an informal archive of emotions and anecdotes shaped by separation and longing, recorded across an entire generation of Filipino overseas workers and their families.
