Señorita

Director: Isabel Sandoval

2011 / 100min / DCP

Donna (Sandoval), a transgender sex worker in Manila, moves back to her small hometown in search of a new life. Once there, she reunites with her only child, a son, who knows her only as his aunt, and becomes caught up in the intrigues surrounding a critical local election, working to unseat the corrupt mayor. A political thriller and a study in sexual subterfuge and transfemininity, Sandoval’s noir-inflected debut feature parallels the everyday deceptions that exist in both public and private life in the Philippines, and displays the filmmaker’s stated interest in “marginalized women who are forced to make intensely personal decisions in a fraught sociopolitical context” already well in place.

Intro and Q&A with Isabel Sandoval