Award-winning Filipiñana will be released by BFI Distribution in UK and Irish cinemas
Rafael Manuel’s debut feature, which won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at this year’s Sundance, will be in cinemas on 20 November.
BFI Distribution announces that Filipiñana, the debut feature from Filipino writer/director Rafael Manuel will be released in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 20 November. With its distinctive visual style and evocative sound design, the film reveals Manuel as a major new talent.
Filipiñana premiered in competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision. Its European premiere was in the Perspectives section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival.
Isabel, a 17-year-old from the rural north of the Philippines, works at an elite country club outside Manila, lining up golf balls for powerful men. New to the job of tee-girl, she wanders the immaculate grounds sampling the club’s luxuries as its members engage in a complex dance with the doting and subservient staff. But something is rotting beneath the pristine fairways, as Isabel discovers when she tries to return a mislaid golf club to its patriarchal director, Dr. Palanca. 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.
Director Rafael Manuel wrote the screenplay while at the London Film School, originally as a feature length film, but he decided to first make it as a short. It premiered at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, winning the Silver Bear for Best Short Film and was nominated for a BIFA. As he expanded the short into a feature, Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (Still Life, A Touch of Sin, Platform) who met Manuel on a mentorship programme, came on board as one of the executive producers.
The key cast members are Jorrybell Agoto, Carmen Castellanos, Teroy Guzman, Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, Isabel Sicat and Nour Houshmand.
Developed and co-financed by Film4, Filipiñana is a Potocol, Ossian International, Epicmedia, Easy Riders Films and Idle Eye production, a co-production between the Philippines, Singapore, UK, France, and the Netherlands. The film is produced by Jeremy Chua, Alex Polunin, Bianca Balbuena, Bradley Liew, and Rafael Manuel; co-produced by Sam Chua Weishi, Nadia Turincev, and Omar El Kadi; and executive produced by Farhana Bhula for Film4, Jia Zhangke, Anthony C. Isais, Grace Mariel M. Isais, Maria Sophia Atayde-Marudo, Jossette C. Atayde, Sebastian Raeuber, and Francine Raeuber.