In Opposition to “A Very Particular Mode of Transness”: Isabel Sandoval On Lingua Franca

The struggles of outer borough working class folks is nothing new to NYC-set dramas. But, in the outsider eyes and busy hands of director/writer/producer/editor/actress Isabel Sandoval, one of the newest auteurs of Filipino cinema — who makes her English-language debut in her adopted city with her third narrative feature Lingua Franca — classic tropes are updated to reflect our current intersectional reality.

The Venice International Film Festival 2019-premiering movie follows live-in caregiver Olivia (Sandoval), who, in the course of looking after an elderly Russian resident of Brighton Beach (Lynn Cohen), becomes romantically entwined with the woman’s ne’er-do-well grandson Alex (Eamon Farren), who labors under his uncle in a meatpacking plant while struggling to get his life back on track. The fact that Olivia is trans and undocumented while blending into her Brooklyn surroundings as cisgender female and assimilated makes the story all the more complicated — not to mention heartbreaking against a political backdrop in which pushing the marginalized back into the shadows and closet has become US government policy.

The day after the film’s August 26th Netflix release, Filmmaker caught up with Sandoval to learn about her project.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

"There is No Expiration Date on Your Sexuality”: Josie Hess and Isabel Peppard on Their Fantasia Festival-Debuting Doc Morgana

The bored and lonely housewife embarking on a life of erotic pleasure has been a porn-movie trope since at least the days of the 8mm-stag film. But the Belle de Jour-style protagonist is never an unhappy Australian mom who goes from planning suicide, to radically reclaiming agency by hiring a male escort, to soaring to international fame as an award-winning feminist pornographer. Until now. Meet Morgana Muses, the unlikely star of Josie Hess and Isabel Peppard’s Fantasia Film Festival-premiering documentary Morgana.

Hess, a filmmaker and pornographer, and her co-director Peppard, who is also an animator and visual artist, began collaborating on what eventually became an unusual, feature-length character study in a likewise unconventional way — at Morgana’s 50th birthday party. As a gift to herself, the self-invented sex symbol had asked the duo to document the celebration — specifically her naked body suspended in Japanese rope bondage. And thus the idea of a film about an artistically defiant, middle-aged porn star was born.

Prior to the doc’s August 20th virtual fest debut, Filmmaker caught up with the Australian directors to learn all about following the Pornfilmfestival Berlin darling — whose fans include everyone from Petra Joy to Stoya, just two of the many erotic pioneers appearing onscreen to sing Morgana’s praises — on her journey from rural Victoria to urban Germany and back. And from the depths of misery to ageless body positivity.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.