Cat&Docs Boards Gay Filipino Couple’s Homecoming Documentary

“We Had a Plan,” a documentary about a gay Filipino couple who return home after a decade as undocumented cleaners in the Netherlands, has found an international sales partner. Paris-based Cat&Docs boarded the film ahead of its world premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Variety has the exclusive first look at the trailer.

A Premiere in Amsterdam’s Luminous Strand

Suzanne Raes directed the film and Venice De Castro Atienza co-directed it. It will bow in the Luminous strand of IDFA, which runs Nov. 12-22. The film also competes for IDFA’s Best Dutch Film Award.

The Cat&Docs deal gives the project a route to international buyers and festivals right as it reaches its first audience. Other sales companies have made similar moves this season, with Lightdox picking up “The Big Boom!” and Filmotor acquiring “Hazara Town” ahead of their own IDFA premieres.

Ten Years of Cleaning, Then a Return to the Philippines

The film follows Paul and Daniel, who spent 10 years cleaning in the Netherlands without papers. They then moved back to the Philippines, where their relatives now regard them as rich. The couple arrive with big ideas for the life ahead of them.

Money and optimism only go so far, though. As the savings from their years abroad run down, and the limits on their freedom as a gay couple close in, the relationship comes under strain. The film turns that pressure into the heart of its story.

Raes described the approach she and her co-director took in shaping the material.

“We shaped this film into a bittersweet love story about a couple whose relationship is tested by global inequalities in wealth, social security and acceptance of queer people,” Raes said. “It reveals the sacrifices migrant workers make to achieve their goals, humanizing an often invisible workforce.”

A Filmmaker Who Knows the Journey

De Castro Atienza brings a personal connection to the story. She said that Paul and Daniel, after 10 years away with no way of going back, had gambled everything on a better future for themselves and their family. She also pointed to her own experience of leaving her home country.

“As a Filipino filmmaker who has also left my home country, I approach their story with closeness and intimacy, recognizing the collective experience of choosing between leaving to provide for loved ones and staying to share a life with them. In ‘We Had a Plan,’ we witness two people try to change the configuration of the world to build a place for their love,” De Castro Atienza said.

That closeness shapes the film’s tone. It keeps the focus on two people and their relationship rather than on abstract debates about migration. The story sits at the meeting point of labor, family obligation, and queer identity.

Why Cat&Docs Signed On

Catherine Le Clef, president and CEO of Cat&Docs, said the company responded straight away to the warmth of the film and its likable protagonists. She framed the documentary as a corrective to how audiences often see foreign workers.

“Through their personal stories, the film offers a deeply human perspective on a foreign workforce that is too often reduced to statistics, stereotypes or simply made invisible. It is also an important reminder of the very real human cost behind the systems that depend on their labor. We felt that this combination of intimacy, tenderness and social relevance made the film particularly powerful and timely,” Le Clef said.

Her comments underline why the film appeals to sales agents. It pairs a personal love story with a subject that carries wide social relevance. That combination can travel across markets and festival programs.

The Directors’ Earlier Work

Raes arrives at IDFA with a track record in documentary filmmaking. Her earlier films include “Close to Vermeer” (2023) and “Where Dragons Live” (2024). The latter earned her a BAFTA Scotland nomination.

“We Had a Plan” now heads to Amsterdam with sales representation in place and a spot in the competition for the Best Dutch Film Award. The trailer gives audiences an early look at Paul and Daniel’s story before the festival opens on Nov. 12.