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).