Isabel Sandoval
Director · b. 1982 · Cebu, Philippines
Isabel Sandoval is an independent Filipino filmmaker and actress who is currently based in the United States. She directed the films Señorita (2011), Aparisyon (2012), and Lingua Franca (2019). She also directed the short film Shangri-La (2021) as part of Miu Miu's Women's Tales series of female-directed short films commissioned by the fashion brand.
Movies11
MovieHistoryDrama1617, Las Islas Filipinas. The Spanish friar, Father Enciso, the encomendero of one of the islands, rules with unrelenting toughness and an insatiable libido to tame the savages.
MovieDramaRomanceIn late 1980s New York, a theater artist living with AIDS takes on one possibly last great role.
The Man I Love
2027
MovieDramaCrimeIn 1970s Manila, a jaded police detective, who, unbeknownst to her colleagues, is the mastermind behind a successful heist, is paired up with her former lover, an obsessively truth-seeking detective, to crack the very crime that she orchestrated.
Moonglow
2026
Movie6.0DramaRomanceIt’s California, during the Great Depression. A woman is confiding her most intimate thoughts in a church confessional, while the man on the other side listens silently and intently. But this is no ordinary religious ritual seeking salvation. The woman — a second generation Filipino farmhand — is rapt in roleplay reverie, her sensuous words aimed at her white American lover, during a historic period when such interracial relationships were forbidden by state law. The confession box transforms into a romantic time machine, ecstatic and melancholic, traveling into alternate futures. She manifests as multiple, dazzling women, and they can love freely. This is the 21st commission from Miu Miu Women's Tales series.
Shangri-La
2021 · 9 votes
- MovieDramaHistory
Philippines, 1570, the early years of the Spanish colonial regime. Marta, a Native Priestess, convinces her Spanish master that she is possessed by the spirit of his dead bride, in order to manipulate him into returning the farmland that the Spaniards seized from the native community. Partially based on the Nick Joaquin short story collection 'The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic'.
Movie6.3DramaOlivia, an undocumented Filipina immigrant paranoid about deportation, works as a caregiver to a Russian-Jewish grandmother in New York. When the man she’s secretly paying for a green card marriage backs out, she becomes involved with a slaughterhouse worker who is unaware that she’s a trans woman.
Lingua Franca
2020 · 26 votes
Movie7.0DramaIn search of her unique voice, an aspiring actress infiltrates cinema history. As she traverses time, space, and gender, she shape-shifts through Hollywood’s most iconic roles, reimagining cinematic archetypes for today.
The Actress
2021 · 11 votes
MovieDramaHorrorA couple stop at a motel in an unfamiliar territory. An unreliable memory reveals the irrelevance of identity.
Movie6.2DramaIn 1983, French actress Maria Schneider gives an interview for the TV show Cinéma Cinémas. The conversation takes an unexpected turn when she challenges film industry practices and is asked to talk about the controversial film Last Tango in Paris (1972).
Maria Schneider, 1983
2022 · 6 votes
Movie6.7DramaDonna, a transgender sex worker in Manila, moves back to her small hometown in search of a new life. Once there, she reunites with her child, who knows her as his aunt, and becomes caught up in the intrigues surrounding a critical local election, working to unseat the corrupt mayor.
Señorita
2012 · 3 votes
MovieDramaLaura, a transgender woman, is a reformed sex worker living a quiet life in the country. But she can't seem to shake off the lure of the big city. A consummate actress, she manages leads a double life but as her lies begin to unravel, will she be able to keep her two worlds separate?
Señorita
2009