High Tide

This film explores how environmental issues like climate change drastically affect sea levels and to an extent, the locals who live in coastal villages. At the center of it all is a young boy who is orphaned due to a massive typhoon and loses his ability to speak.

When Unyok lost both his parents to super-typhoon Ising, he lost his ability to speak. He and his family used to live in a small island with about 20 other families, but due to climate change, the sea level has become so erratic and dangerously high that the small island has become a “no-man’s-land”. As a disaster risk-reduction measure, the local government forcibly resettled all the families to the mainland. Now, he lives in the mainland coastal village with his friends Dayday and Laila. Every low-tide they would go look for clams together in the shoreline. What little income they would get from selling clams they would give to their father, Tibor, who does back-breaking labor in the bangus fishpond of a rich man. When the girls’ mother becomes seriously ill, they frantically search for clams to help their father with the increasing hospital expense. Unfortunately, the supply of clams in the mainland coastline anymore is depleting. In an attempt to help, Unyok leads the girls to…

Director: Tara Illenberger
Writer: Tara Illenberger
Stars: Arthur Solinap, Dalin Sarmiento, Sunshine Teodoro