Sundance-winning Filipiñana heads to UK cinemas this November

Filipino filmmaker Rafael Manuel’s award-winning debut feature Filipiñana is heading to UK and Irish cinemas this November, following acclaimed appearances at Sundance and the Berlin International Film Festival.

The film centres on Isabel, a 17-year-old from the rural north of the Philippines who takes a job as a tee-girl at an exclusive country club outside Manila. Surrounded by immaculate fairways and wealthy members, she begins exploring the privileges of a world built on a carefully maintained relationship between its powerful clientele and subservient staff. When she attempts to return a misplaced golf club to the club’s patriarchal director, Dr Palanca, however, her journey into its increasingly exclusive spaces begins to expose troubling connections to both the country’s past and her own.

Filipiñana premiered in competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision, before making its European premiere in the Perspectives section of the Berlin International Film Festival. The cast includes Jorrybell Agoto, Carmen Castellanos, Teroy Guzman, Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, Isabel Sicat and Nour Houshmand.

Manuel originally wrote Filipiñana as a feature while studying at the London Film School before first developing the story as a short. That film won the Silver Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale in 2020 and was subsequently nominated for a BIFA. As Manuel returned to the material for his feature debut, Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke – whom he met through a mentorship programme – joined the project as an executive producer.

Expanding a story Manuel has been developing for several years, Filipiñana takes the rarefied environment of an elite golf club as its lens on class, power and the social structures surrounding its young protagonist, bringing the filmmaker’s Sundance-winning first feature to UK audiences later this year.

The editorial unit

Filipiñana is released nationwide on 20^th November 2026.

Watch the trailer for Filipiñana here: