Actualizing Your Art with Isabel Sandoval
Isabel Sandoval is a trans Filipina filmmaker and a name to keep an eye on as she takes on Hollywood. Her most recent feature film Lingua Franca has been nominated for over 20 awards from organizations such as GLAAD, Film Independent Spirit Awards, the Venice Film Festival, the London Film Festival, and the American Film Festival. Lingua Franca was picked up for distribution by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY to be streamed on Netflix, and her first two features have also recently become available on The Criterion Channel. With a short in MiuMiu’s Women’s Tales series, a third feature underway, and a series in development at FX, it appears that tour-de-force Isabel Sandoval is just getting started. Her films are not only visually but emotionally striking, leaving you nostalgic, raw, and awestruck at the end of each viewing.
TLL’s Brielle Wyka was very excited to talk with her to discuss her career, her recent successes and upcoming projects, and the magic of manifestation.
ON HER EARLY LIFE
What were your first memories of film?
I fell in love with cinema from an early age. Being in the Philippines, there were mostly mainstream Filipino films. A lot of mainstream Filipino films tend to be parodies of Hollywood movies. But then as I grew older, my taste became sophisticated and I became introduced to world cinema.
I realized that I was creative and preferred channeling my creative expression through images. I would dream of images and scenes in my mind and string them together. I think it was kind of like editing a film in my mind. And that was kind of how I realized it was a filmmaker.
How did you become a filmmaker?
I became a filmmaker ultimately because I decided to make films on my own. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master's degree in business, but I did not decide to pursue a traditional film education because I wanted to approach it more intuitively than technically. I knew that what was important for me was to realize my vision. I wrote and directed my films and collaborated with people like a cinematographer or production designer who could help me realize my vision from the page to the screen as faithfully as possible. In a way that's not compromised.
ON HER CURRENT PROJECTS
Has your approach to directing and writing features changed over time?
I can say that I'm definitely more confident now. Lingua Franca was a kind of litmus test for me because it's artistically risky. It was quite a gamble given that its premise has quite a textbook social realist drama feel and there's a certain way to make it that would make it more Sundance. Not to disparage Sundance in any way.
What was the gamble with Lingua Franca? And have you noticed anything specific with creating your upcoming feature Tropical Gothic?
The gamble with it was that given its social realist premise, I attempted to make a film that was far more sensuous and lyrical and subtle and quiet. And that paid off and Lingua Franca has been warmly received and helped establish me as a filmmaker with a distinct voice. It’s really emboldened me to take even more creative and artistic risks with Tropical Gothic. I've told myself that I've come to this point in my career because with every project that I've undertaken, with every new film that I made, I really challenged myself to try to do something different. I’m not just a filmmaker, but a person that really embraces what makes me different and unique. My so-called otherness has kind of been my fuel to be original and to break rules and boundaries. I'm going to continue doing that in Tropical Gothic, because that's what my gut instinct tells me to do. I want to continue evolving as an artist in my chosen art form, which is cinema.
After selling your show Vespertine to FX-- what are you mostly excited to explore in television as a medium
I've never done a TV series before and it's so remarkable because that TV series that I pitched was the very first series that I seriously had put together. And FX was the first place that we pitched to. So, it really came as a shock to me when a week later they got back to us after our pitch saying that they liked it enough and that they wanted to pick it up.
We're kind of going about the development process step by step. They're paying me to do a pilot script for instance, and if they like the script and we move forward to shooting the pilot, then we're going to get a series order. But I'm really enjoying the process right now and seeing how different writing a feature film is versus TV series writing. It's quite the learning curve for me, but I'm excited because it's yet another kind of medium that I want to master and hopefully innovate. I'm really also grateful that FX is very auteur driven and they really support directors that have a bold vision. I'm excited to be partnering with them, fingers crossed it moves forward to development!
How do you keep your creative vision intact while working in collaboration with others? Especially for a major network?
With the TV series, I'm also kind of really exploring a different style or a sensibility that would suit the material. It features a nun character, like my second movie Apparition. So I'm revisiting, iconic movies, featuring nun characters like Black Narcissus, Powell and Pressburger, which I know FX recently did.
I'm using this time, as I'm developing Vespertine to revisit filmmakers that have influenced me before like: Ingmar Bergman for instance, Wong Kar-wai, Fassbinder, and Almodovar and see what kind of cinematic inspirations come up for this TV series.
There have been quite a few arguments these past few years that TV, especially prestige TV, has become the cinema. And we have auteurs like David Lynch really reinventing TV with the return of Twin Peaks. And that's in fact how I managed to cast Eamon Farren, for Lingua Franca, he was in Twin Peaks. This is my first foray into TV. I hope to make not a splashy debut, but a truly exciting and artistically singular experience for viewers.
ON HER WORKFLOW
What roles in production do you enjoy the most?
I feel like if I say I like directing more than the other ones, the others might get jealous, but honestly I feel like I’m most comfortable as an editor. Just because when I was a kid, that's how my mind worked. I would come up with these different scenes in my mind and I would just mentally like stitch them together as an editor would. In fact, if there's one particular role on a movie project that I would never give up it's as an editor, because I feel like that's where it really feels like it comes together.
I feel like I take on the other roles that I do, which are considered more pivotal or more important, like writing and directing, because that allows me to make the exact raw materials that I need as an editor to make the film that I ultimately want to make. It allows me to be in control of the crucial elements of the story and the production too, so that I satisfy my own expectations as an editor.
What’s the average production timeline for your features?
I have made three films in less than 20 days through shooting. When I made Señorita, I shot it in 15 days. I shot Apparition in 8 days. And I shot Lingua Franca in 16 days as two days of pickup. So I'm fast when I'm actually shooting the movie.
What are the challenges with shooting in short timeframes?
As independent / art house filmmakers, we know that we're not necessarily working with the biggest budgets and we don't have the luxury of time and a lot of resources. When I am on set, I know exactly the movie that I want to make. I know how to shoot the scenes that I'm going to shoot that day and that makes me efficient as the director. Even though I don't necessarily rehearse my script to death with the actors, I trust them and I cast them because I know that they have an intuitive understanding of the material and the characters that they're playing. I'm prepared and I'm ready when they go on set in the morning. And that really helps me, finish the film on time and on budget.
What does it feel like when you’re on one of your sets?
I'm in my element creatively when I'm working with limitations and a set of parameters. When I'm working with a certain budget, even if it’s a modest budget, and a set number of days that I need to shoot my film, I step up. It’s like having a deadline that you have to deliver on a certain date. I'm able to marshall all of my energies and my focus into finishing that project when it's supposed to.
How does ‘buy in’ from your crew affect the output of a project?
It's important that you're also able to convey your passion and what makes your vision compelling, unique, and original. It's that passion that comes across to others as confidence and that really inspires them and gets them to believe in you and the film that you're making. I think that really went a long way in helping me assemble the team that I did because for my first feature, for instance, it was mostly self-financed then shot in the Philippines. My goal was not necessarily to make a film that is going to make a hundred million dollars at the box office because it's such a niche theme, but I wanted to make sure that my unique voice and aesthetic sensibility as a key filmmaker came through. That’s exactly what happened. It got programmed at a prestigious film festival in Europe and that got my filmmaking career started.
What does your average storytelling process look like?
Certainly I can sometimes have ideas for years before I sit down and actually write them. When I'm trying to get inspiration for projects, listening to a piece of music can sometimes trigger images or scenes in my mind when I’m driving. While I was writing Tropical Gothic, my new feature, I came across this movie by Aaron Katz called Gemini and listened to the soundtrack. And when I heard the title track, that just somehow conjured this image of this native woman, a native Philippina walking through the woods in the Philippines, in the 16th century. And that gave me the initial idea for Tropical Gothic. And over weeks and months, more and more images would just cross my mind and I would mentally start constructing a narrative around that.
How do you transform your story into a screenplay?
When I feel like I have enough of a story, I sit down and work on a first draft. This is usually really, really fast. It's really a flurry of writing where I type down everything that comes to my mind and don't edit at all. Sometimes in a matter of two weeks I can finish a first draft and then put it aside for a few weeks or up to a few months. When I revisit again and start making actual revisions, that part takes me a while. It takes me up to two months for the second draft because that's when I really edit and start getting rid of ideas or scenes or characters that I don't think I can use moving forward. I go about my editing process from draft to draft with my thematic anchor in mind. The second and third draft usually take the longest, but when I come to like the fourth draft, when the script finally feels like it's in a good place, the process becomes more straightforward. Then it’s just putting the financing together and then, hopefully shooting.
What themes do you see in your own work?
I’m coming to realize that I have my own thematic fixations and obsessions. I've heard French filmmaker John Cocteau say that filmmakers make the same movie over and over again throughout the course of their careers and that we tend to revisit the same themes or the same motifs. Maybe there’s changes in the setting or the type of character or the time period… Thematically, I have always been drawn to stories about women with secrets. These women tend to be disempowered or marginalized in a certain way. You can say they're either outcasts or minorities. This is very clear in my work so far, especially with Lingua Franca. This is an undocumented trans woman living in Trump's America. That's the kind of story that I gravitate towards.
ON HER FUTURE
What's something unexpected in your art that's happened to you?
To be honest, subconsciously I visualized the things that have been happening in my art and my career. The universe just somehow conspired to make it happen. I was having this conversation with other artists that I'm here with, at this artist residency called Yaddo, and they were asking me, “Did you imagine any of these things that have been happening?”. And to be quite honest, I did. I kind of set those expectations for myself. But after I kind of just privately and internally told myself that this is what I wanted to happen, I kind of shelved it and put it away. But in every conscious decision I made in creating my art, I was inspired and motivated by that vision that I wanted to see happen.
Like when I was making Lingua Franca I had joked to my producers that “This movie is going to go to Cannes or Venice!” And oh my god, I just forgot about that. I think that kind of bad-ass “fake it til you make it” attitude really empowered me and emboldened me to make the daring creative choices that I made. But it also allowed me to live in the moment of my art and just make it feel as fearless, inspired, and as authentic as possible. I remember distinctly while we were shooting the sex scene in Lingua Franca, I was telling my crew “Oh, you know, I bet we're going to get nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.” It's so funny that it actually happened.
But we should allow ourselves to have lofty visions and we really have to trust ourselves as artists because when we put that energy out into the universe, the universe will submit to our will and to our inhibitions of ourselves and that’s what happened with Lingua Franca. And I’m eternally grateful for the people who have helped make it and who have appreciated the voice powering it and the vision behind it.
How else does creative visualization aid you as an artist?
That's part of my creative exercise, actually — creative visualization and manifesting. When it happens, it takes me by surprise, but I also just have to give myself credit. If I didn't set this kind of goal or ambition for myself, then I would not have been active towards it. One tip that I can share is that we need to be big because if we don't do it for ourselves then who else will?
How do you see your creative tone evolving over time?
At this point, between my third and fourth feature, I'm realizing that in my career my films marry a strong political impulse or undercurrent with a visual sensibility and a tone that’s more delicate, lyrical, and sensuous. And that's ultimately what makes them resonant and poignant. That’s all I can say right now, who knows after Tropical Gothic which direction I’ll be creatively leaning towards.
But I'm also trying to be strategic as a minority filmmaker. I want to strike a delicate balance of making films that are both artistically bold and distinct, but also manage to make enough money commercially that I'm able to have a sustainable career and living. It's really about inventing my own cinematic language that is adventurous and exciting, but also accessible to a mainstream audience. Ultimately, my goal is for my films to be seen by as wide an audience as possible, and that doesn't mean I have to make crap. I just have to be ultimately very innovative and inventive in terms of choosing say a style or a subject matter that would resonate and connect with as many people as possible.
How can rising filmmakers grow in their confidence as creators?
Especially for first-time filmmakers, never think that a low budget is a deterrent or is going to be a huge gatekeeper. I'm referring to film programmers for instance, because we as filmmakers are trying to submit our films to festivals or critics or people in the industry. They’re not gonna pay attention to the budgets of the films or to the production value, but they are going to notice your voice, your sensibility as a storyteller, and your style.
So from that perspective, never discount or disparage your unique background, especially if you're coming from a minority community. Whether you're transgender or queer or you’re a woman filmmaker or you're a filmmaker of color because, it's our unique background that gives us the raw materials to tell a story that’s really striking.
How else can creators establish their own voices?
As storytellers, we also need to tell stories in a way that's really quite different from what everyone else is doing. That requires a mindset of being willing to break certain rules and conventions of storytelling, especially when we're attending film school. We are essentially trained to conform to certain tropes or certain ways of telling stories and making films. We are also conditioned to think that we can only pursue one specific track, whether it's writer or director or cinematographer. But the unorthodox path that I took shows that we need to be creative about our routes and paths when it comes to our professional careers. I feel like the established path of “go to film school and do this and this and this”, was created for creators that have a certain amount of privilege, like whether you’re a man, or white, or cis. Because we're different from that, we kind of need to think outside of the box and embrace the uncertainty of charting our own paths from scratch.
I started out as a complete outsider. I purposely did not go to film school. Be original and be inventive about breaking into the industry but ultimately, that rests in creating work that's really defiant. Try experimenting with new ways of telling things. Don't worry about the budget. Don't worry about the production value given the limited resources that you have. You have a blank canvas to just blow the industry away with your talent and your ingenuity. And that's what you should focus on.
What do you love most about yourself and your identity?
I love that I'm different. I embrace it. And I think that is what gives my art its power and its validity and its resonance.
Follow more of Isabel’s work here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Isabelvsandoval
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isabelvsandoval/