One of the most formally accomplished feature debuts to premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Rafael Manuel’s Jia Zhangke-backed feature debut Filipiñana is set at a country club in the Philippines as we follow a 17-year-old “tee-girl” who starts uncovering a rotting core of misogyny and violence amongst the higher-ups and clientele. With striking tableaus crafted by cinematographer Xenia Patricia, Manuel’s film effectively pulls back the clashing layers of beauty and systemic issues to capture a country’s disparities. Ahead of an August 28 release from Kino Lorber, the first trailer has now arrived for the Sundance winner for World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision.
Here’s the synopsis: “Isabel, a 17-year-old from the rural north of the Philippines, works at a posh country club outside Manila. Amid stifling heat and pervasive drought, she lines up golf balls for powerful men to drive into the carefully manicured verdant horizon. Between shifts, she wanders the immaculate grounds, sampling its luxuries and exploring its liminal spaces. The club’s members, including an industrialist and his expatriate niece, the president and his pampered wife, and a slew of Chinese tourists, engage in a complex dance with the doting and subservient staff. But something is rotting beneath the pristine fairways of the elite resort, as Isabel discovers when she tries to return a mislaid golf club to its patriarchal director, Dr. Palanca. The deeper she journeys into Alabang’s most exclusive corners, the closer she gets to the violent truths of the club, her native Philippines, and her own past.”
See the trailer and poster below.
