trans woman

Isabel Sandoval’s timely Lingua Franca is the rare film that centers on a working class, usually invisible woman. With a delicate dramatic touch, Sandoval shows how the life of Olivia, an undocumented Filipina trans woman, is shaped by the tense political climate and her lack of options.

Let’s salute writer, director and lead actress Isabel Sandoval for Lingua Franca. The film is her somber, sobering and highly personal story infused by her own real life experiences as she plays an a post-opt Filipino trans woman, an undocumented immigrant living and working in Brooklyn.