An audience award winner at last year's Toronto Film Festival, YESTERDAY CHILDREN is perhaps Siguion-Reyna's most disturbing work ever. As he did in his previous film, THE MAN IN HER LIFE (SFIAAFF '98), Siguion-Reyna presents observations on the fluidity of beliefs and mores in Filipino society through a well-crafted narrative. Set during the time of El Niño-related drought in the Philippines, the film is a parable of a town's sense of desperation and endurance as it explains and copes with the forces of nature. After months of a dry spell, the rice fields have become barren and the town is stricken with poverty. Many of the villagers lose faith in the Roman Catholic church and turn to an animistic cult. Christian prayer and the Eucharist make way for rituals with sacrificial virgins.

Amidst the flux are a bastard boy and a blind girl, whose insight provides for a subtle commentary of the society they live in. As the clash of faiths unfold, the viewer encounters the textures and layers of the town's varied characters--misogynistic cult leaders, a devoutly Catholic mother, her cynical daughter, the priest with a dubious past and the terrified virgin who becomes the town's last remaining offering. As the film reaches redemption through its moving climax, the children come of age. Innocence is lost, while dignity is regained.