An electric presence both in front of and behind the camera, filmmaker Isabel Sandoval is a formidable and singular voice in contemporary cinema. Set across the Philippines, her home country, and the United States, where she is now based, her simmering character portraits explore the nuances of desire, trans identity, immigrant life, and more. Her films are underlined by urgent political contexts, yet they also make space for fantasy. For her tactile, sensorial frames, Sandoval has been hailed as the “queen of sensual cinema.” Fresh from shooting her fourth feature, Moonglow, the indefatigable director has curated a selection of her favorite gems from the MUBI vaults.

“Taking a look at my choices, they conjure a certain mood that’s either elevated or removed from reality. It’s a different plane of consciousness,” Sandoval said. “They reflect my growing interest, especially when dealing with history or collective memory, in a subjective cinema rather than an objective one. These are films that you let wash over you or cast a spell over you. You’re not only watching a movie here. You’re also open to being transported to a different realm, a different space and time.”

Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018)
“It’s such a jolting, class-conscious adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story. What struck me about Burning is that a lot of the drama is under the surface. But the conflict grows until that explosive finale. There’s also one unforgettable scene set to “Générique” from Miles Davis’s score for Elevator to the Gallows (1958)—I’m obsessed with that song. While writing Moonglow, I was listening to that and a couple of other songs from that time on a loop to get in the mood.

Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
" Tabu captures a mood called saudade, which is a melancholic yearning. The feeling could be for something that happened in the past, or it could be for something that hasn’t happened yet. Here it’s a whisper that cloaks the entire film. What I like about Tabu, as well, is that it acknowledges the role white colonialists played in splitting up the continent of Africa. There’s also a recognition of the struggle and strife in the freedom movement that worked to liberate Africa from European rule."

A Very Curious Girl (Nelly Kaplan, 1969)
“I find films that are unapologetically feminist exciting, even though, looking at this one, it might be a kind of wish fulfillment fantasy, given just how oppressive much of Western society is. For me, this is made in the same spirit as Věra Chytilová’s Daisies (1966). "

The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
“Much has been said about how luxurious and sensual this film is. I’m also struck by how poignant it is: the film demarcates where fantasy ends and where love begins. For one character, a preoccupation with ritual and roleplaying is unabashed, but for the other, it’s work. Through that labor, she slips into a fictional character and out of devotion, out of love. It’s a rebelliously independent film that foregrounds desire, pleasure, and romance between two women, in a society gleefully devoid of men.”

Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
“Another two-hander, this time between Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart. While sexual tension is very much front and center in The Duke of Burgundy, here it’s more of a subtext. The film is sly and thought-provoking, a cutting meditation on aging and mortality, pop culture and art-making. It belongs to a tradition of films about self-possessed, diva-like actresses who grapple with aging in an unforgiving industry. As with the older and younger actresses in Opening Night (1977) and All About Eve (1950), there is a strong parallel between Juliette Binoche’s and Chloë Grace Moretz’s characters in this as well.”

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze, 2021)
“What impresses me about this film is the ingenuity of its construction. It’s not quite as extreme as Tabu, but there’s almost no dialogue. Much of the film is powered by its voice-over, which has a philosophical, literary quality to it. Not only are we immersed in idiosyncratic, private worlds, but the film also becomes a love letter to Georgia, its history and its memories. I love that it connects seemingly whimsical narrative elements to affection for a place and its people.”

Pacifiction (Albert Serra, 2022)
“Pacifiction seduces through atmosphere: an air of political intrigue that becomes especially ominous in the final scene. I might not completely understand everything about the plot; I don’t think Benoît Magimel’s character does either. I was drawn in by its bold use of color to evoke a certain consciousness. It reminded me of early color cinematography. Back then, color wasn’t used for realism but for expressionism. Here, ignorance is a kind of sensorial bliss.”

Night Tide (Curtis Harrington, 1961)
“This feels like a midnight fable, a bedtime story that doesn’t exist in any concrete reality but in a nebulous spot between waking life and dream or nightmare. It’s also curious in that it’s made by a queer filmmaker, Curtis Harrington, and certainly feels queer-coded. I see a liminal trans allegory for Dennis Hopper’s character. Is he sexually, romantically infatuated with a mermaid or does he want to become her?”

Spring Fever (Lou Ye, 2009)
“This is the first film by Lou Ye that I ever saw. Almost fifteen years ago now, I was drawn to how visual and tactile it is. When two gay lovers make love while it’s raining outside in one scene, I can feel how humid and sticky it must have been in that room. Lou Ye has a specific aesthetic that I am enamored with.”

Train Again (Peter Tscherkassky, 2021)
“It’s a fever dream about trains. Peter Tscherkassky’s shorts are often expressionistic nightmares. Here, rattling sound and image meld to trace how train shots are used in the history of cinema. I am interested in transportation and trains in my film Lingua Franca too. How do characters travel from one point to another, both geographically and psychologically? I turn to Tscherkassky’s films not for narrative logic, but to be whisked up into a hypnotic, dreamlike plane.”