Fil-Am wins SXSW Short Film Special Jury Prize

Kailyn Dulay appears in ‘When You Left Me On That Boulevard’ by Kayla Abuda Galang, an official selection of the U.S. Shorts program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Rajinee Buquing/Sundance Institute)

Kayla Abuda Galang’s “When You Left Me on That Boulevard” won the Texas Short Special Jury Award for Vision at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

Written and directed by Galang, the coming-of-age short film was inspired by her own emotional experience of reunions with her extended Filipino American family.

“When You Left Me on That Boulevard” follows a teenage girl, Ly, and her cousins as they get high before a boisterous family Thanksgiving at one of their auntie’s houses in San Diego in 2006. The slice-of-life genre film shares the universal feelings surrounding family reunions.

“I would love for people who come from communities like mine, the Paradise Hills Filipino American community, to be able to see themselves in something as intimate and weird and funny as this,” Galang told the Texas Standard. “I just want people to be reminded of what it’s like to be loved and held by people who love you and whether that’s your mom or your sibling or cousin or friend or whomever.”

“When You Left Me on That Boulevard” premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Short Film Grand Jury Prize.