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Filipino Filmmaker Bianca Catbagan Accepted into AFI Directing Workshop for Women+
Bianca Catbagan has become the third Filipino filmmaker in 50 years to join the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women+, selected for the 2027 cohort. She will develop her historical drama 'Royal Blood,' a sapphic reimagining of José Rizal’s Maria Clara set in late 1880s Manila.
Apr 25, 8:00 PM·3m read1 source
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Los Angeles-based Filipino filmmaker Bianca Catbagan has been accepted into the 2027 cohort of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women+, becoming the third Filipino to join the program in 50 years, Rappler reported. Catbagan will realize her historical drama 'Royal Blood' alongside seven other filmmakers in the workshop.
The film reimagines José Rizal’s Maria Clara through a sapphic lens, set in Manila.
It follows two lovers whose relationship grows more erratic upon the arrival of the Rizalian character. The story draws from Stephen Frears’s 'Dangerous Liaisons' (1988) and Roger Kumble’s 'Cruel Intentions' (1999).
'Royal Blood' is written by Catbagan’s frequent collaborator and real-life partner, a British Filipino filmmaker who is now mentored by Lilly Wachowski. Catbagan stated, 'The original Maria Clara is refined, but also built around fragility. She is an idea of femininity that’s composed, restrained, respectful, and even performative in suffering.
I wanted to push against that. ' She added, 'In many ways, that was Manila’s strict, Catholic society to me. That was the feeling I had, figuring out who I was, in my parents’ home. I’m interested in what it means to hide behind obedience, to make yourself small in order to survive.
Something that echoes the figure of Maria Clara. ' Catbagan further stated, 'At its core, Royal Blood is still about teenagers feeling jealousy, desire, and heartbreak, something that’s not isolated to the queer experience. But I also understand my work more deeply because I move through spaces that ask me to examine it that way.
