Incisive class satire executiveproduced by Jia Zhangke opens Aug. 28 at Film Forum
Winner, World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award For Creative Vision, 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
NEW YORK, NY.—
Film Forum will present the U.S. theatrical premiere of Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana on Friday, August 28.
17-year-old Isabel navigates the opulent pavilions and lush green landscapes of Dr. Palanca’s luxury golf course as a newly-hired “tee girl.” Meticulously composed, highly stylized, and guided by precisely choreographed movement and deadpan delivery, Filipiñana unfolds through the gradual accumulation of everyday encounters between staff and the wealthy clients of this secluded country club on the outskirts of Manila. When she attempts to return a lost golf club, Isabel uncovers a dark underbelly beneath the club’s pristine surfaces, in this sweltering, pastel-colored fairy tale of class division, institutional patriarchy, and invisible violence.
Filipiñana had its world premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision, and went on to screen internationally in the Perspectives section at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Rafael Manuel’s short films have won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale, screened at Locarno, IFFR, and FIDMarseille, and are exhibited by ARTE and the Criterion Collection. He is the last film protege at the Rolex Arts Initiative where he was mentored by Jia Zhangke.
“A masterwork—which is all the more remarkable given that it’s the first feature by the Filipino director Rafael Manuel... The film performs a scalpel-sharp dissection of the [luxury tourism] industry, laying bare a mad microcosm of power relations—political, sexual, economic, familial, cultural, even linguistic—and the aesthetic of dominance that the resort, in Manuel’s discerning view, projects... Manuel’s approach to narrative is as original as his sense of cinematic form, and his gift for documentary-style observation is balanced by a refined sense of style.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Darkly comic, visually inventive... cinematically builds into a scathing account of inequality, showing how women like Isabel are condemned to work in a place whose atmosphere is closer to that of a colonial plantation than a cushy country club.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
“An invigorating dose of arch formalism in a sea of mainstream sincerity, this is the kind of movie that asks for the viewer’s attention and patience—not because it is slow or oblique but because it’s built entirely out of details... the angle of a golf club can evoke suspense, a piece of fruit on the ground can feel like a tragedy, and a casual glance can take your breath away.” – Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
