Widely considered Lav Diaz’s first major work, and the recent recipient of a 35mm restoration by the Austrian Film Museum, Batang West Side begins as a Filipino-American teenager is shot to death on the streets of Jersey City. The subsequent investigation is led by a detective, also Filipino, who finds himself forced to confront some demons of his own. The drug and gang elements that are subsequently uncovered are but surface level issues to the underlying question by Diaz of the current state of the Filipino diaspora in the USA, and beyond. Diaz uses the murder as an exploration of the current psychological state of an isolated Filipino community that is conflicted, angry, and unable to find redemption in their new surroundings.