The Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) is spotlighting “The Void is Immense in Idle Hours,” a Filipino-Indonesian co-production examining grief and survival, at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) running Nov. 4-7 in Taipei.
Directed by Sam Manacsa and produced by Chad Cabigon and Carlo Francisco Manatad of Philippines-based NextLives, with Yulia Evina Bhara of Indonesian production company KawanKawan Media serving as co-producer, the project centers on 19-year-old Rosemary, who becomes the last person to see a young boy before his disappearance. Finding herself alongside the child’s grieving mother Agnes in the search, Rosemary confronts unspoken grief and forgotten dreams in the stillness of their shared days.
The film emerged from Manacsa’s personal exploration of living with daily grief in communities where people continue surviving even after profound loss. “It began with me processing the thought of living with grief every day, in spaces where people keep moving and surviving, even when something inside them has already been lost,” Manacsa says.
The narrative draws from the reality of mothers who have lost sons to violence without answers or justice. “In them, I saw how pain can exist alongside care, how strength and exhaustion can live in the same breath,” Manacsa explains. “That intimacy is what made me want to tell this story: the invisible weight of holding things together, of searching for meaning in repetition, of living on even when life feels paused.”
Manacsa describes the film’s core as exploring “quiet persistence” — the small, unspoken ways people keep moving when grief never ends. “In a society where violence has become ordinary, the film asks what kind of life is left to live, and what it still means to live at all,” the director says.
The production is currently in the financing stage, with plans to begin prep work in late 2026. Principal photography is targeted for the second quarter of 2027, with a 2028 release anticipated, according to producer Cabigon.
At TCCF, the team seeks production partners who share their vision for intimate, socially conscious storytelling. “We hope to find strong partnerships with producers, financiers, and co-production partners who share our commitment to telling intimate, socially rooted stories with care,” Cabigon says. “We hope to find people who will shape this film together with us, guiding its artistic and narrative journey in a safe space while keeping its emotional truths.”