BY IRVIN RIVERA

Kayla Abuda Galang's 2023 Sundance FIlm Festival Short FIlm Grand Jury Prize award-winning film "When You Left Me On That Boulevard" takes the audience directly in the heart of most Filipino-American family holiday gatherings- there's a lot of food, a lot of people, there's cousins, aunts, uncles, servings of tea and gossip, and the karaoke microphone that always takes the center stage.

I love how the first few minutes of the film also took me back to this familiar scenario that I experienced myself back when I first moved to the United States. It was loud, chaotic, but also warm at the same time. I attribute this feeling of nostalgia and familiarity to the filmmaking and storytelling techniques employed on this film. It's relatable, it's familiar, and it can be anybody's universal Filipino-American story.

Also, the aunt's karaoke singing sequence of "Boulevard" by Dan Byrd got the song stuck in my head for hours.

In the film, we follow our protagonist Ly and her cousins on their family Thanksgiving celebration and shenanigans as she explores weed, boys and Filipino family life.

I love this hazy, grounded, almost mesmerizing collection of snapshots of a teenager's memories growing up in San Diego's Paradise Hills. There's power in the details, for sure, and also power in the seemingly mundane things that are universally relevant- it's that invisible universally connective tissue that binds us through our experiences.