Filipino film 'Filipiñana' makes Sundance 2026 line-up

December 12, 2025 | 3:09pm

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino representation carries on at the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the United States, after Rafael Manuel's "Filipiñana" was included in the 97-project line-up of the 2026 edition.

"Filipiñana" — a co-production of the Philippine with Singapore, the United Kingdom, France and Netherlands — is one of the 10 films competing in Sundance 2026's World Cinema Dramatic Competition, marking its world premiere.

In fact, the other nine films in the category are making their world premiere at the film festival, including "Big Girls Don't Cry" starring "Game of Thrones" and "Peaky Blinders" actor Noah Taylor.

A logline for the film teases its story about a teen girl named Isabel who is strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club where she works

"However, after piecing together a violent picture of what lies beneath the club’s pristine surface, she realizes that what began as an innocent infatuation is actually rooted in a sinister shared history," the synopsis goes.

In the cast for "Filipiñana" are Jorrybell Agoto, Carmen Castellanos, Teroy Guzman, Isabel Sicat, Nour Houshmand and Carlos Siguion-Reyna.

Manuel also wrote the film in what will be his feature directorial debut, while Jeremy Chua, Alex Polunin, Bianca Balbuena, Bradley Liew, Nadia Turincev and Omar El Kadi all produced.

The film, supported by the Cinéfondation La Residence du Festival de Cannes is based on Manuel's 2020 short film of the same name — also starring Agoto — which won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival and was nominated for the Best British Short Film at the British Independent Film Awards.

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Figuring in the U.S. Dramatic Competition are "Carousel" (with Chris Pine, Jenny Slate and Sam Waterston), "Josephine" (with Gemma Chan and Channing Tatum) and "Union County" (with Will Poulter and Noah Centineo).

Premiering outside of competing categories are three films starring pop star Charli XCX including Gregg Araki's first film in over a decade "I Want Your Sex."

The 2026 Sundance Film Festival will be the event's first year since the passing of co-founder and Oscar winner Robert Redford. It will also be the last edition to take place in Utah before the festival relocates to Boulder, Colorado in 2027.

Last year, Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan's "Vox Humana," a co-production between the Philippines and the United States, ran in the U.S. Fiction Short Films category.

The 2024 edition, meanwhile, saw Ramona Diaz's documentary "And So It Begins" — the Philippines' entry to the 2025 Oscars — and Whammy Alcazaren's short film "Bold Eagle" in the line-up as well as two movies starring Dolly de Leon, "Between the Temples" and "Ghostlight."

The Philippines saw its first victories at Sundance in 2022 when "Leonor Will Never Die" starring Sheila Francisco won the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit while Eblahan's "The Headhunter's Daughter" won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize.

Before both films' participation, the first and only Filipino project to compete at Sundance was the acclaimed "Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros" which ran there in 2006.

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