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World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision
Tee girl Isabel feels strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club where she works. However, after piecing together a violent picture of what lies beneath the club’s pristine surface, she realizes that what began as an innocent infatuation is actually rooted in a sinister shared history.
+ MoreWorld Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision
Tee girl Isabel feels strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club where she works. However, after piecing together a violent picture of what lies beneath the club’s pristine surface, she realizes that what began as an innocent infatuation is actually rooted in a sinister shared history.
Displaying an extraordinary command of his surreal and unnerving visual language, first-time filmmaker Rafael Manuel adapts his award-winning 2020 short film of the same name to chilling effect. Manuel plumbs the depths of Filipino identity and national consciousness to uncover ominous fragments and cracks that defy picture-perfect unity. Through a stylized, colorful approach lensed with care and precision by cinematographer Xenia Patricia, Manuel takes us into a world where violence and control are exerted with the subtle flick of a wrist or tip of a hat. Painting a scathing portrait of class disparities and post-colonial power structures in ways that are both quiet and unsettling, Filipiñana announces the arrival of an accomplished writer-director who unflinchingly confronts his country’s past, present, and future. — AS
Available in person. Also available online for the public (January 29–February 1) and credentialed press and industry (January 28–February 1).
Rafael Manuel
Rafael Manuel
Jeremy Chua
Alex Polunin
Bianca Balbuena
Bradley Liew
Nadia Turincev
Omar El Kadi
Rafael Manuel
Sam Chua Weishi
Farhana Bhula
Anthony C. Isais
Grace Mariel M. Isais
Maria Sophia Atayde-Marudo
Jossette C. Atayde
Sebastian Raeuber
Francine Raeuber
Jia Zhang-Ke
Xenia Patricia
Tatjana Fanny Honegger
Carla Villanueva
Tatjana Fanny Honegger
Vincent Villa
Rafael Manuel
Eugene Seah
Vlad Barin
Jorrybell Agoto
Carmen Castellanos
Teroy Guzman
Carlitos Siguion-Reyna
Isabel Sicat
Nour Houshmand
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Austin Kennedy
akennedy@magpictures.com
9175148407
Based in between London, Amsterdam, and Manila. Rafael Manuel’s short films have won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale, have screened at Locarno and Rotterdam, and are exhibited by ARTE and the Criterion Collection. He was the last Film Protégé at the Rolex Perpetual Arts Initiative. Filipiñana is Manuel’s debut feature film.
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