Filipiñana

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Creative Vision and executive produced by Jia Zhangke, Rafael Manuel’s feature debut expands his Berlinale Silver Bear–winning 2020 short into a work of immaculate control and sunlit menace. Isabel, 17 and newly employed, works as a tee girl at an exclusive country club outside Manila, placing balls for the powerful men who cross the verdant course as if the land had always belonged to them. Around her, sprinklers hiss, golf carts glide, staff wait with practiced patience. All the while, the rules of the club seem to echo a larger national order. Manuel turns golf and perfect lawns into a savage satire of capitalism, building suspense from tiny humiliations, absurd rituals, and gorgeous, poisonous details. What begins as a droll portrait of service and privilege slowly bares very sharp teeth. A Kino Lorber release.