Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca is a tender portrait of intimacy shaped by migration, vulnerability, and the quiet negotiations of belonging. Centered on an undocumented Filipina trans woman living in New York, the film moves with delicate restraint, revealing how love emerges in spaces marked by uncertainty and risk. Sandoval crafts a deeply humane story about visibility, dignity, and the fragile hope of building a life across borders. — Fay Nass, Queering Cinema curator
The expression here is one of shared humanity regardless of background, gender identity, race or creed. The common language being used here is cinema.
David Fear, Rolling Stone
A gorgeous and delicate picture, an understated work that opens a window on an intimate world.
Stephanie Zacharek, Time
Isabel Sandoval
Isabel Sandoval, Eamon Farren, Ivory Aquino, Lev Gorn, Lynn Cohen
USA/Philippines
2019
In English, Russian, Tagalog, and Cebuano with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Wednesday April 29
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Jhett Tolentino, Carlo Velayo, Darlene Catly Malimas, Isabel Sandoval
Screenwriter
Isabel Sandoval
Cinematography
Isaac Banks
Editor
Isabel Sandoval
Original Music
Teresa Barrozo
Production Design
Clint Ramos
Also in This Series
This year’s Queering Cinema brings together films that inhabit the space where desire collides with displacement, fantasy, power, migration, and risk.
Fucktoys Advance Screening + Annapurna Sriram Q&A
Bold, irreverent, and fiercely queer, Fucktoys plunges into a world where pleasure, performance, and identity collide. This special advance screening comes with a Q&A with filmmaker Annapurna Sriram.
