Years When I Was a Child Outside is a meta-film following Torres’ perspective as the son of best- selling self-help author Rodolfo Torres, whose instructional books and tapes made in early 1980s Philippines aimed to ‘help raise brighter children’. Upon learning that his father bore illegitimate children, the narrator decides to run away. The film is not only a chronicle of stories through foreign regions but also a probing letter from outside circles; an honest account of illegitimate views from uneven terrain; and a narrative-driven exploration of the nooks and peripheries of the body, geography and weather. As the journey progresses, the film increasingly traverses the countries of revelation, film, and heart—to where all journeys are meant to end with.

Q&A with filmmaker John Torres