Verdict
Please note: This event took place in March 2021
An abused wife looks for justice but finds the legal and bureaucratic institutions meant to protect her mired in loopholes and repressive patriarchal traditions in Filipino writer-director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez’s gripping feature debut.
Joy (Max Eigenmann) lives in Manila with her six year old daughter Angel and her husband Dante (Kristoffer King), a small time criminal. When he arrives home one night in an alcohol-fuelled rage and attacks Joy (not for the first time) and also hurts Angel, she flees with her daughter to the local police to try to get him sent to jail for good. From here, we follow Joy as the bureaucratic wheels start to painfully turn...
Delivered with urgency and guided by compassion, Verdict takes a hard look at the myriad ways bureaucracy and patriarchal tradition combine to endanger a woman's safety.