Golf and ‘Love/Hate Relationship’ With Philippines Feature in Busan Asian Project Market Selection ‘Filipinana’

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated Singaporean producer Jeremy Chua and emerging Philippines talent Rafael Manuel have teamed on “Filipinana,” a selection at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market this year. The film will follow 17-year-old girl Isabel, who spends her whole day teeing-up balls for golfers at a country club. She feels strangely drawn to club president Dr.

Palanca, but as she starts to piece together a more violent picture of what lies behind the club’s pristine facade, she comes to realize that what began as an innocent infatuation is rooted in a more sinister, shared history. “Filipinana” is based on the short film of the same name that won the Silver Bear for best short at the 2020 Berlinale. The project began life as a feature film script that Manuel wrote when he was at film school in London in 2018.

Manuel ultimately decided it would be better to build a profile for the project by doing a short film set in the same universe first. “Although it may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of the Philippines, I think that the golf course is a perfect metaphor for my country; it is a very large and fertile plot of land that is worked and toiled on by so many but ultimately enjoyed and profited from by only a select few,” Manuel told Variety. “With ‘Filipinana,’ I would very much like to convey what it feels like to be Filipino and to have this love/hate relationship with our country which contains so much beauty but also so many problems that we don’t even know where to start picking up the pieces.” Recent productions for Chua’s company Potocol include “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” which won the Camera d′Or at Cannes earlier this year, “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” which screened at the 2023 Berlinale, “Last Shadow at First Light” that played San Sebastian recently and 2022 Venice winner “Autobiography,” which is Indonesia’s entry for the Oscars this year.