Isabel Sandoval’s ‘Shangri-La’ is the Latest in Miu Miu Women’s Tales Series

Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe via Instagram

Director Isabel Sandoval becomes the latest director commissioned by Italian fashion label Miu Miu to create a short film for their Miu Miu Women’s Tales. Shangri-La is the twenty-first film in the series, which includes shorts by women directors such as Ava DuVerney, Haifaa Al-Mansour, and Mati Diop.

Described on Miu Miu’s IG as “a journey in time, a story about the freedom to love”, it premiered today via their website and social media channels. Set during the Great Depression, it opens with a quote on California’s 1850-1948 anti-miscegenation statute, which prohibited different racial groups from marrying each other “including FIlipinos who migrated in the early 1900s after the US colonized the Philippines.”

The description on Miu Miu’s IG continues: “The title Shangri-La summons the idea of earthly paradise, isolated from the world. For some immigrants, America was a promised Shangri-La, whose reality in the 19th and early 20th century, turned out to be a different story. Isabel Sandoval’s film turns that historic gaze around — through the additional lens of a trans woman of color — into an optimistic portrait of freedom, liberation and elusive Utopia, away from prejudice.”

Sandoval’s previous work includes 2019’s Lingua Franca — a movie about an undocumented Filipina trans woman who works as a caregiver in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach — which she wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. It has been nominated for multiple awards, became the first film directed by a trans woman of color to screen at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival, and was picked up last year by Ava DuVarnay’s distribution company ARRAY and is now available to stream on Netflix.

Check out the short film via Miu Miu’s IGTV or on miumiu.com.