Rafael Manuel

A film about a girl drawn to a golf course.

While working at an elite country club outside Manila, a 17-year-old Ilocana worker uncovers the violent truths of her workplace, her country, and her own past after attempting to return a lost golf club to the club's president.

A bird called Memory has forgotten how to come back home. Lua, a trans woman, searches for Memory in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, but the city can be a hostile place.

Having just moved to Amsterdam, Lou prepares her new apartment that she will share with her partner, Joel. For now though, Joel is on a trip with an intimate other. Confronted with the complexities of her non-monogamous relationship, Lou shifts her gaze to the rhythms of her new city.

Nights can be long inside Naomi and Ram’s room. Tonight, they have invited Marina over and their messy space is under scrutiny. Exploring intimacy as a personal playground and the skin as an intimate map, Naomi’s docile body unravels in the tension inside a room she keeps grasping and losing. The small child within her is itching to giggle through the night, before the break of day.

Tonight, Naomi’s long-term partner reveals to her that he will return to monogamy with one of his recent connections. Confronted with the harsher realities of non-monogamy, Naomi heads out onto the streets of Amsterdam for a night of diverse intimacies, to remember why it is that she committed to this kind of relationship structure in the first place.

A film about a girl drawn to a golf course.

A film about a girl drawn to a golf course.

A film about a girl drawn to a golf course.

While working at an elite country club outside Manila, a 17-year-old Ilocana worker uncovers the violent truths of her workplace, her country, and her own past after attempting to return a lost golf club to the club's president.

While working at an elite country club outside Manila, a 17-year-old Ilocana worker uncovers the violent truths of her workplace, her country, and her own past after attempting to return a lost golf club to the club's president.

While working at an elite country club outside Manila, a 17-year-old Ilocana worker uncovers the violent truths of her workplace, her country, and her own past after attempting to return a lost golf club to the club's president.

A bird called Memory has forgotten how to come back home. Lua, a trans woman, searches for Memory in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, but the city can be a hostile place.

Having just moved to Amsterdam, Lou prepares her new apartment that she will share with her partner, Joel. For now though, Joel is on a trip with an intimate other. Confronted with the complexities of her non-monogamous relationship, Lou shifts her gaze to the rhythms of her new city.

Nights can be long inside Naomi and Ram’s room. Tonight, they have invited Marina over and their messy space is under scrutiny. Exploring intimacy as a personal playground and the skin as an intimate map, Naomi’s docile body unravels in the tension inside a room she keeps grasping and losing. The small child within her is itching to giggle through the night, before the break of day.

Tonight, Naomi’s long-term partner reveals to her that he will return to monogamy with one of his recent connections. Confronted with the harsher realities of non-monogamy, Naomi heads out onto the streets of Amsterdam for a night of diverse intimacies, to remember why it is that she committed to this kind of relationship structure in the first place.

Daily life unfolds in a gated community of Manila amidst birdsong, effigies of the Holy Family, lush greenery and the intricacies of class. Rafael Manuel's (co-director alongside Tatjana Fanny) intimate gaze on his own childhood home oscillates between personal and political, offering a tender yet piercing view into social and familial structures in the Philippines.

Maria is a Filipino maid in London who dreams of gaining British citizenship.