“What is an ordinary childhood?” asks director Thea Loo at the beginning of her documentary Inay. “As Filipino-Canadians, we're always caught between two places.” 

Thea and cinematographer Jeremiah Reyes—a Filipino husband-and-wife team—turn the camera on themselves in Inay (Tagalog for “Mama”) to explore the cultural and psychological impacts on children whose mothers left the Philippines out of economic necessity. Thea begins a thoughtful inquiry into the experiences of family separation by interviewing her husband, Jeremiah, and her best friend, Shirley. Through her explorations, Inay intertwines personal narratives with historical context to shed light on the impact of migration policies created by the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). As a viewer, I stumbled with Thea as she navigates the pain and trauma her partner and friend have experienced through migration and mental illness and challenges the notion of normalcy within Filipino immigrant experiences. 

“My mom came back [to the Philippines] in 1999 to take me and my brother to Canada. I didn’t know how I felt when my mom came back,” Jeremiah says in the introduction of the film over old footage of his childhood. “It's like a new person coming into your life. And it's like ‘Oh, I actually had a mother this whole time?’”

Early in the film, Charlene Sayo of the Philippine Women’s Centre of BC explains to Thea that starting from the 1970s, the Philippines promoted labour migration to tackle economic challenges, leading many young, educated Filipino women to seek work abroad to support their families. Canada introduced the LCP to attract these workers into domestic caregiving roles, requiring them to complete 24 months of live-in work within three years before they could apply for permanent residency or sponsor their families—a process that often resulted in prolonged family separations.

Jeremiah and Shirley's personal narratives become an intimate lens through which the film critiques the Live-In Caregiver Program, revealing how policies intended to provide opportunities, instead, perpetuated cycles of emotional hardship and familial disconnection. Most of the people affected by the LCP lack the language or safe space to explore these lived experiences. Inay aims to spark dialogue for those who are still finding their words.

Jeremiah is introduced making silly mating calls as he spends an afternoon with Thea in North Vancouver. Shortly after, they share a heavy conversation at the park where Thea urges him to seek counselling. Instead of engaging, Jeremiah awkwardly shifts the topic by asking if she's thought about having children. Thea reminds him that focusing on health is crucial before starting a family. Later, while Jeremiah assembles a desk at home, the discomfort deepens. 

Thea probes into his depression, as she speculates connections between his mental illness and immigration; he opens up about his upbringing in the Philippines and feelings of separation. The dialogue becomes increasingly uneasy when he admits that being married has made managing his depression harder. Meanwhile, Thea admits that his depression can feel “annoying” to her at times, revealing her genuine struggle to understand the depth and complexity of his mental illness, and the challenges despite her efforts to bridge their gap. When Jeremiah reveals his suicidal thoughts stem from constant sadness, both admit they don't fully understand his feelings–rooted in a mental illness, as well as a particular migrant experience, that Thea does not share. 

Thea reflects to herself: “What I’ve realised over time, is that my upbringing in Canada and his immigration from the Philippines creates many differences between us.” 

The juxtaposition of Jeremiah's playful antics with the heavy conversation not only highlights the mask often worn by those struggling with mental health, but also underscores the difficulty in bridging emotional gaps within relationships strained by complex cultural and personal histories. However, the editing in Inay is a vulnerable showcase of Thea's thoughtful inquiry into personal stories–including behind-the-scenes dialogues, clumsy questions, and moments of imperfection– and enhanced by a soft, gentle musical score that guides the audience through what is ultimately an emotional journey towards closer connection.

Early in the film, Thea and Jeremiah agree to make the film together, in hopes that it will allow them to process their cultural differences and strengthen their marriage. At first glance, Thea's inquiry into Jeremiah's and Shirley's lives might seem extractive—a critique often associated with documentary filmmaking. As Thea also expresses in her own words, one wonders how extracting a partner’s memories, recording this journey, and then presenting it to the public would make their relationship stronger. This perspective arises from the concern that documentaries can sometimes take personal stories, especially those involving trauma or vulnerability, and use them to construct a narrative that serves the filmmaker's vision, more than the well-being, agency, and potential re-traumatisation of their subjects. 

Midway through the film, Shirley's gentle reminder to Thea that a documentary alone won't heal Jeremiah underscores a meta-commentary on the limitations of art in resolving deep-seated personal traumas. This moment of realisation between friends leads Thea to reflect for a moment and reframe the film as a new pathway for communication that hadn't existed before, rather than as a resolution. 

In the larger Filipino diaspora, speaking about the trauma of family separation is difficult to talk about as our elders were taught to be tough and resilient and, in order to survive, to often prioritise their emotions last. Thea discusses mental illness with her own parents, who explain during an interview that there is no Tagalog word for “depression”; instead, the term used translates to a type of crazy that is infectious, so they prefer to avoid discussing mental health. “We might all be cuckoos then,” Thea’s mother jokes, emphasising the challenges Filipino-Canadians face when confronting mental illness intergenerationally. 

As the film is told from Thea’s lens into her friends' lives and their journeys in broaching these topics with their mothers, the mothers' interviews arrive at the end of the film. In my opinion, their emotional revelations could have had a more significant impact if introduced earlier, allowing their perspectives to more fully intertwine with their children's journeys. The mothers' testimonies reveal their experiences living in two worlds, physically and emotionally, before and after reunification.

Through tears, Shirley’s mother Alma says: “I left the Philippines because being a single mother is hard. I worked three jobs in the Philippines, and it won’t be enough to send you to a good school. I am lucky we are part of this documentary because I never got to talk to you guys about it.” At this point, her mother pauses and apologises for becoming so emotional during the interview. It is clear that in order to be providers, these mothers were physically removed and taken away from attending to the emotional needs of their children. 

Leading up to this point, the film's use of shaky camera work mirrors the instability and chaos experienced by its subjects, while the recurring imagery of snow serves as a powerful metaphor for the emotional coldness and isolation resulting from family separation. As the mothers and their children sit together in a meeting room in snowy Ottawa, the emotional distance between them begins to close. This exchange builds the heart and warmth of the film, a welcome reprieve from the silence and cold prior.

“I felt really cold. It’s not because of the temperature at the time. I just felt like it was not home. I struggled a lot with the thought of me being there, and my family so far from me,” Elvira, Jeremiah’s mother, recounts, “Every night, that experience was painful. During the day I could work and forget about it. But when I finished my work, in that empty room, I felt like: Is it worth it? Being here? Separated from my kids?”

Through brilliant cinematography by Jeremiah Reyes and Christian Jones, blended with old footage, Inay captures the emotional depth of its subjects, using close-ups to engage viewers intimately with the characters. Inay effectively ties personal stories to political context, highlighting systemic challenges Filipino caregivers face due to immigration policies, including the power imbalance and vulnerability to exploitation through the Live-In Caregiver Program's conditions. After exposing how such policies perpetuate inequities and long-lasting mental health impacts, the film leaves the viewer with the pressing question: What is Canada doing to address these gaps in the program it created?

Bring a box of tissues for the end of this film, it does not hold back as its multiple stories weave together.

Inay previewed at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival and has screened at the VIFF Centre. Follow Inay on Instagram to stay updated on their journey and to catch future screenings!

Nathalie De Los Santos (she/they) is a writer and creative. She is one of the festival organizers of the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival. She created PilipinxPages, a bookstagram featuring Filipinx authors. She has appeared on: PechaKucha, CBC, LiterAsian (2020), TFC, OMNI TV and others. Her publications are in Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing, Canadian Literature, the National Women’s History Museum, Cold Tea Collective, Sampaguita Press, Ricepaper Magazine and more. She hosts the Filipino Fairy Tales, Mythology and Folklore podcast. Follow her work on Instagram (@PilipinxPages).