Last year, our family grappled with the grief of selling our decades-old ancestral land in Laguna, Philippines to corporations who sought to transform it into commercial space. 

Recalling precious childhood memories growing up in the lakeside patch, Mariana took the sale especially hard, likening it to a loss of self. Gabriela, simultaneously, found herself untethering from a 10-year romantic attachment, entering a deep depressive state as her former partner formed a very sudden, very public new relationship.

Juggling professional and social demands as young women in Manila, we chose to keep our individual heartbreaks to ourselves and maintain calm, capable facades in order to function day to day, saving face in front of our family, friends, and community. But inside, feelings of decay bubbled underneath everyday. Eventually opening up to each other and describing our inner anguish, without naming specifics, felt like we were talking about the exact same thing: the abrupt and immense removal of our sources of solace.

We siblings found ourselves mirroring each other’s pain, and through this, also began to heal. We agreed that unbearable tension arises when we, as women, suppress pain in order to fit society’s expectations. When your spring of comfort and safety is taken away from you – be it a place or a person – sometimes all you can do is disappear into your own abyss.

Using film as a vessel to communicate our truest selves to the world around us, Surface Tension is a shimmering emergence from the turmoil of heartache – an endeavor we choose to do as sisters, hand in hand.​