Rafael Manuel
Director
Jeremy Chua, Bradley Liew
Producer
Philippines
Country
Logline
New tee-girl Isabel feels strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club where she works at. But as Isabel starts to piece together a more violent picture of what lays beneath the country club’s pristine surface, she eventually realises that what began as an innocent infatuation with Dr. Palanca is actually rooted in a more sinister shared history.
Rafael Manuel
Rafael Manuel is a Filipino filmmaker currently based in between London, Amsterdam, and Manila. Among numerous awards and prizes across festivals around the world, his latest short film ‘Filipin ana’, won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival and was nominated for the Best British Short Film at the British Independent Film Awards 2020.
His foundations are in philosophy and visual communications which he studied at the Ateneo de Manila University. Before taking up his MA in filmmaking at the London Film School, he worked as a copywriter for Saatchi & Saatchi and as a creative director for TBWA. Rafael’s work in cinema has been featured by ARTE, the Criterion Collection, Variety, Screen Daily, Cineuropa, the New York Times, Forbes, & Vice.
He is currently developing his first 2 feature films: ‘Filipin ana’ (based on his short of the same title), with the support of Film 4, the Rolex Arts Initiative, the Cannes Cine fondation La Residence, the Berlinale Script Station, the BFI network, Tokyo Talents, Oxbelly Lab & the Locarno Filmmakers Academy, and ‘Patrimonio’, with the support of the Hubert Bals Fund and the Prince Claus Seed Award.
In 2022, Rafael was chosen by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke to be his protegee at the Rolex Arts Inititative.
Jeremy Chua
Jeremy Chua is a Singaporean film producer and screenwriter. He started his career as a programme assistant at The Substation, a distribution assistant at Lowave Paris, and then an assistant producer at Akanga Film Asia.
Since 2014, he founded Singapore-based independent film label Potocol as a creative house for distinctive Asian auteurs to produce films, videos, installations and artwork.
His work as producer include Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell by Pham Thien An (Cannes Camera d’Or 2023), Tomorrow is a Long Time by Jow Zhi Wei (Berlinale 2023), Last Shadow at First Light by Nicole Midori Woodford (San Sebastian 2023), Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak (FIPRESCI Venice 2022), Glorious Ashes by Bui Thac Chuyen (Nantes Golden Balloon 2022), Rehana Maryam Noor by Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Cannes UCR 2021), A Family Tour by Ying Liang (Opening Film International Competition Locarno 2018), A Yellow Bird by K. Rajagopal (Cannes Critics’ Week 2016) and A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery by Lav Diaz (Silver Bear Berlinale 2016).
He is an alumnus of EAVE Ties That Bind 2013, Produire au sud 2015, Berlinale Talents 2017, SEAFIC 2017 and Torino Film Lab 2018. He is also a programmer at Pingyao International Film Festival under Jia Zhangke and Marco Mueller since 2017.
Bradley Liew
Malaysia born, Manila-based, Bradley Liew is the CEO and Head of Project Acquisitions & Development of Epicmedia Productions Inc.
As a Producer, he focuses on championing both seasoned and upcoming directors with distinct and uncompromising voices. From producing Lav Diaz’s anti-musical: Season Of The Devil (Berlinale Main Competition), his 16mm analogue film-noir When The Waves Are Gone (Venice Out of Competition) and Essential Truths of the Lake (Locarno Main Competition). He has also worked on Gerardo Calagui’s Transgender Drama, Those Long Haired Nights (IFFR, Thessaloniki); to the genre coproduction Nocebo starring Eva Green and Mark Strong, Truong Minh Quy’s Viet and Nam (Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, France, Netherlands, Germany), and most recently Kenneth Dagatan’s Sundance Midnight Section’s In My Mother’s Skin which was sold to Amazon.
Bradley is an alumnus of the Asian Film Academy, the NAFF Fantastic Film School, Berlinale Talents, Talents Tokyo, Locarno Filmmakers Academy, EAVE Ties That Bind and the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab.
He’s the Group Leader for the Malaysian Development Lab for Fiction Feature Films (Mylab) and has also served as part of the jury at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.