
Isabel Sandoval
Directing
Biography
Isabel Sandoval is a Filipina filmmaker and actress who lives in the United States.
Known For

Every summer, Belly and her family head to the Fishers’ beach house in Cousins. Every summer is the same ... until Belly turns sixteen. Relationships will be tested, painful truths will be revealed, and Belly will be forever changed. It’s a summer of first love, first heartbreak and growing up — it's the summer she turns pretty.
The Summer I Turned Pretty

When Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco meet at college, they are at that formative age when seemingly mundane choices lead the way to irrevocable consequences. They quickly fall into an addictive entanglement that will permanently alter not only their lives, but the lives of everyone around them.
Tell Me Lies

A devout detective's faith is tested as he investigates a brutal murder that seems to be connected to an esteemed Utah family's spiral into LDS fundamentalism and their distrust in the government.
Under the Banner of Heaven

A mosaic-style comedy following the life of a woman as time passes in her long-term casual BDSM relationship, low-level corporate job, and quarrelsome Jewish family.
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed

In 1970s Manila, a jaded police detective, who, unbeknownst to her colleagues, is the mastermind behind a successful heist, is paired up with her former lover, an obsessively truth-seeking detective, to crack the very crime that she orchestrated.
Moonglow

In Hong Kong, a young woman haunted by visions of her future self meets a stranger who changes the course of her night -- and possibly her life.
Zi

Tender caresses and enveloping embraces are portals into the life of Mack, a Black woman in Mississippi. Winding through the anticipation, love, and heartbreak she experiences from childhood to adulthood, the expressionist journey is an ode to connection — with loved ones and with place.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

Olivia, an undocumented Filipina immigrant paranoid about deportation, works as a caregiver to a Russian-Jewish grandmother in New York. When the man she’s secretly paying for a green card marriage backs out, she becomes involved with a slaughterhouse worker who is unaware that she’s a trans woman.
Lingua Franca

When a chance encounter on a dating app reveals his father’s double life, a troubled young man must face the parallels between his own destructive patterns and his alcoholic father’s infidelity.
Summer's End

A couple stop at a motel in an unfamiliar territory. An unreliable memory reveals the irrelevance of identity.
A 1984 Period Piece in Present Day

In 1983, French actress Maria Schneider gives an interview for the TV show Cinéma Cinémas. The conversation takes an unexpected turn when she challenges film industry practices and is asked to talk about the controversial film Last Tango in Paris (1972).
Maria Schneider, 1983

For over 85 years, steamship Ste. Claire transported generations of Detroiters to Boblo Island, an amusement park nestled in the waters between the US and Canada. When the vessel comes under threat of ruin, a doctor, psychic and amusement park fanatic unite to save their beloved steamship from the scrapyard. Interweaving local lore and mythology, "Boblo Boats" explores the whitewashed history of amusement parks and one crew's crusade to bring back the memories.
Boblo Boats: A Detroit Ferry Tale

In three reenactments of a controversial 1983 television interview, actors Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga, and Isabel Sandoval play late French actress Maria Schneider. “The Listening Takes” is a prescient confrontation with the patriarchal structure of the film industry. [Overview Courtesy of Participant Inc.]
The Listening Tapes

Tucked away in a remote forest, the convent of Adoration is inhabited by a group of nuns seeking a peaceful life of devotion and discipline, filling their days with nothing but mundane chores and prayers. But the wish for a life in isolation is threatened when President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law, and political protests and chaos begin to infiltrate every corner of the archipelago. Suddenly, the nuns find themselves engulfed in violence and unrest that will eventually put their faith and conscience to the test.
Apparition

Donna, a transgender sex worker in Manila, moves back to her small hometown in search of a new life. Once there, she reunites with her child, who knows her as his aunt, and becomes caught up in the intrigues surrounding a critical local election, working to unseat the corrupt mayor.
Señorita
Philippines, 1570, the early years of the Spanish colonial regime. Marta, a Native Priestess, convinces her Spanish master that she is possessed by the spirit of his dead bride, in order to manipulate him into returning the farmland that the Spaniards seized from the native community.
Tropical Gothic

It’s California, during the Great Depression. A woman is confiding her most intimate thoughts in a church confessional, while the man on the other side listens silently and intently. But this is no ordinary religious ritual seeking salvation. The woman — a second generation Filipino farmhand — is rapt in roleplay reverie, her sensuous words aimed at her white American lover, during a historic period when such interracial relationships were forbidden by state law. The confession box transforms into a romantic time machine, ecstatic and melancholic, traveling into alternate futures. She manifests as multiple, dazzling women, and they can love freely. This is the 21st commission from Miu Miu Women's Tales​ series.
Shangri-La
For the first time since immigrating to the United States over a decade ago, Jhett Tolentino decides to visit his hometown of Iloilo City in the Philippines. He traces his steps from his slum-stricken birthplace to the schools he attended. Jhett always thought there is something bigger for him outside of Iloilo. He ventures into different careers until he finally finds his purpose in the Great White Way - not onstage but on the business side as the only Filipino producer on Broadway. Witness Jhett's journey in this documentary as he shares his triumphant immigrant story and captures the special moments of his homecoming that is full of surprises, love, hope and inspiration.
Life Is What You Make It

In search of her unique voice, an aspiring actress infiltrates cinema history. As she traverses time, space, and gender, she shape-shifts through Hollywood’s most iconic roles, reimagining cinematic archetypes for today.
The Actress

Laura, a transgender woman, is a reformed sex worker living a quiet life in the country. But she can't seem to shake off the lure of the big city. A consummate actress, she manages leads a double life but as her lies begin to unravel, will she be able to keep her two worlds separate?