Sandoval’s previous films Senorita (2011) and Apparition (2012) served as stepping stones for Lingua Franca and since premiering at Venice, the filmmaker has left quite an impression with her distinct ...

Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca intimately invites audiences to the life-world of Olivia, an undocumented trans Filipina immigrant in Brooklyn, New York. The film gives cineastes the ...

What is it like to move through life under the Trump administration as a trans woman and a woman of color who's in the U.S. illegally? That is the question filmmaker Isabel Sandoval explores in her ...

2018 was a banner year for Lingua Franca. Designer Rachelle Hruska had created the label two years prior, after taking up embroidery to help manage her postpartum anxiety and depression. By then, its ...

The agenda is lunch, but as he mulls over the menu of a Chinese restaurant amid the bustle of New York’s Garment District, Alexander Star seems to have other things on his mind. A few weeks ago, Mr.

A trans Filipina in Brooklyn has troubles of both the romantic and immigration-status ilk in writer-director-star Isabel Sandoval's quietly involving drama. There’s a simultaneous delicacy and ...

The first time we get a good look at Olivia she’s reflected in the triple panels of a bathroom medicine cabinet mirror. From the angle at which she’s washing her face, we can see semi-obstructed three ...

Lingua Franca marks many firsts for filmmaker Isabel Sandoval. Originally from the Philippines, the drama marks Sandoval’s first feature shot in the United States and it made history at the 2019 ...