Deathrow
– A neglected and unloved orphan raised by poor relatives in the slums of Manila is wrongfully convict..
A neglected and unloved orphan raised by poor relatives in the slums of Manila is wrongfully convicted of murder that resulted from a heist he was compelled to join. Unable to prove his innocence and his minor age, he is thrown into the cruel, perilous and horrifying world of death row where he is introduced to other inmates all awaiting their execution by lethal injection. One of them is a 70-year-old man who detests the jungle of jail and is feared by all the convicts. He would serve as the boy’s protector and savior and in the process touch and shape enormously the violated youth’s life in prison and beyond.
25 Dec 2000
Filipino, Tagalog
Having strung along with delinquent friends to a home robbery that ends in a wealthy old woman's death, Manila slum youth Sonny is too stunned to get away while the others elude police capture. He's duly convicted of murder - worse, as an adult, since the orphan boy's birth certificate was lost in a fire, and his callous foster parents are nowhere to be found. Thrown into lockup among hardened lifers, the terrified 16-year-old soon finds himself at the mercy of various strong-arm cliques on death row. He's courted by booty-bandit Gabino, who plots to seize cell block "mayor" Mio's status as chief executor of the in-house drug trade controlled by rich prisoner Assunta. A few figures take a more protective than exploitive interest in the new fish. But Sonny's best ally, it turns out, is old-school gangster Sinat, who at 77 is still gruff and imposing enough to survive outside all the block's warring factions. He also has the support of distant relative Gina, a church-sponsored legal advocate. As he is uninterested in the early-release petition she offers, he encourages her to take up Sonny's case instead.
9 wins & 15 nominations.