Filmmaker Joella Cabalu returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss her highly anticipated “rom-com documentary” First Comes Loves: Nakabingwit. This National Film Board of Canada production has its world premiere at the 2026 Vancouver International Film Festival. The film follows three Filipina–white couples whose whirlwind love stories unfold alongside hard conversations about race, belonging, and what it takes to stay together. The Tagalog word “nakabingwit” refers to catching a big fish but colloquially, it means you caught a rich white husband. When talking to other Filipino Canadians, our valiant filmmaker discovered this word carries complex feelings of both pride and shame. Framing these stories is Joella’s own meta-narrative. Through a playful voice-over and fictionalized scenes, she revisits racially charged moments from her romantic life, which are evocatively depicted by actors Gabrielle Jacinto and David Lennon in the style of popular romantic films like When Harry Met Sally and Before Sunrise.
In this fun and fascinating episode, Joella speaks with Sabrina (a biracial women who is in a interracial marriage with a biracial man) about the joys and challenges of interracial relationships, the intergenerational healing that comes from having tough conversations, why she hired an actress to play her in this film, and what’s a rom-com documentary, anyway?
YVR Screen Scene is a division of Fish Flight Entertainment.
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