Andrea Benjamin Manenti’s debut feature “I Have to Fuck Before the World Ends,” a cross-cultural coming-of-age comedy set between Italy and the Philippines, is seeking financing and animation partners at the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market.
The film follows Ren, a 16-year-old Filipino-Italian teenager trapped in his mother Mia’s possessive love, who must break free during a three-day Filipino wake as Typhoon Edith approaches Manila. When news arrives that Mia’s mother Moini is dying in the Philippines, mother and son return to Manila, where Ren finds himself enchanted by Jolina, his cousins’ babysitter, and coached in the art of love by his eccentric cousin Monique. As Typhoon Edith nears and family dysfunction brews, Ren must claim his independence.
The project blends live action and animation, reinventing archetypes of lost innocence and discovering one’s roots within the rarely seen setting of a Filipino wake in Italian cinema.
“I’m aiming for a film that’s tender and punk at once: a portrait of the awkward, wondrous attempts to connect with others; a hybrid, cross-cultural cinema that speaks to second- and third-generation audiences caught between two distant worlds,” Manenti tells Variety.
The project is structured as a co-production between four countries – two in Asia and two in Europe – with Italy’s Volos Films and the Philippines’ Epicmedia already attached.
“Since the signature of the coproduction treaty between Italy and Japan, we feel there are many more opportunities for collaboration between Italy and Asia, and the TIFFCOM market has been instrumental in fostering these partnerships, so it makes much sense for us to be here at this stage,” producer Stefano Centini of Volos Films Italia tells Variety.
The project recently won the Development Award for Outstanding Film Project at MIA Rome, where it received its first industry pitch. “The reception has been overwhelmingly warm so far,” says Manenti, who co-wrote the script with Rossella Inglese and Antonio La Camera. Filipino editor Carlo Francisco Manatad, whose work as both editor and director Centini says he admires deeply, is attached to the project.
Manenti wrote the film following his mother Edith’s death. “I went through a private ‘end of the world’ that demanded to be faced. Perhaps the only way I found to cross it was by writing a story within it: a comedy about my mother’s morbid devotion to me, about dysfunctional families, and about those clumsy yet wondrous attempts to rebuild relationships,” he says.
The project previously participated in Milano Film Network’s InProgress Lab in 2023, where Manenti met Carlo Hintermann – first a mentor, now a creative lead and producer – who subsequently brought in producers Centini and Serena Alfieri from Volos Films. “The strength of this team is its culture of care: the film is growing as a collective creative process while remaining deeply personal,” Manenti says.
Centini praises the energy of the new generation of Italian filmmakers. “There is a revived energy in these young creators which reminds me a lot of my previous experience in Asia, especially in the Philippines, for the mutual care and collective will to create something which is inspiring and moving at the same time,” he says. “Working with Epicmedia, our Filipino co-producer who shares our ideals of co-production, was the most natural for the film.”
Manenti, who also works as a director of photography collaborating with Italy’s new wave filmmakers, speaks to the collaborative spirit of his generation. “There is real sharing; we are first and foremost a group of people who respect and care for one another, far from toxic forms of competition; we are building an ecosystem that, in the long run, will be our strength,” he says.
The team aims to close financing in 2026 and begin production in 2027, with plans for a research trip to the Philippines and casting for the protagonist scheduled for next year.
AloJapan.com