Give Up Tomorrow

The story of culinary student Paco Larranaga, who, at 19 years old in 1997, was arrested for the kidnap, rape, and murder of two sisters on the provincial island of Cebu in the Philippines. Despite demonstrable evidence of his innocence, including 40 eyewitnesses and photographs placing him hundreds of miles from the scene, Paco's legal ordeal was only just beginning. Dubbed the Philippines' "trial of the century," Paco's ordeal became a galvanizing focal point in a far-reaching expose of gross miscarriage of justice at the highest levels. Following the case and its aftermath for more than a decade, the film traces Paco's story from the ethnic and class tensions at its roots, through a distracting thread of tabloid sensationalism, and ultimately to appeals and interventions from foreign governments and NGOs as the injustice of Paco's situation becomes ever more stark and undeniable.