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Filipiñana

Singapore | 2025 | 100 min. | Rafael Manuel

Opens September 25, 2026

At a picturesque upscale resort and golf club on the outskirts of Manila, 17-year-old tee-girl Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto) seeks out Dr. Palanca, the club's president, to return a misplaced golf club, but unexpectedly uncovers a series of dark truths about her workplace, elite members, and her own past.

With a delicate and sharp perspective, this film explores class differences, power structures, and post-colonial realities, presenting a complex and unsettling picture of contemporary Philippine society within the seemingly tranquil green golf course.



Amid stifling heat and pervasive drought, Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto), a 17-year-old Ilokana from the rural north, works at a posh country club outside Manila, lining up golf balls for powerful men to drive into the verdant horizon. New to the job, she wanders the immaculate grounds sampling its luxuries as members, including an industrialist and his expatriate niece, the club president and his pampered wife, and a slew of Chinese tourists, engage in a complex dance with the club’s 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 (Teroy Guzman). The deeper she journeys into its most exclusive corners, the closer she gets to the violent truths of the club, her native Philippines, and her own past.

"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

  • Director: Rafael Manuel
  • Principal Cast: Jorrybell Agoto, Carmen Castellanos, Teroy Guzman, Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, Isabel Sicat, Nour Houshmand
  • Country: Singapore
  • Year: 2025
  • Running Time: 100 min.
  • Producer: Jeremy Chua, Alex Polunin, Bianca Balbuena, Bradley Liew, Nadia Turincev, Omar El Kadi
  • Screenplay: Rafael Manuel
  • Cinematographers: Xenia Patricia
  • Editors: Rafael Manuel
  • Awards: Sundance Film Festival 2026 (World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision) San Francisco International Film Festival 2026 (New Directors Award)
  • Language: Filipino, English, Ilokano
  • Has Subtitles: Yes