TGIF Feature: Filipina American's film is streaming on Netflix

Since you're staying home to avoid the coronavirus, check out this timely film on Netflix  about a Filipina undocumented  immigrant.

Lingua Franca, written, directed and starred-in by Isabel Sandoval, has attracted great reviews and could be Oscar-worthy. It gives a glimpse of an immigrant  community and a life that is rarely seen by most Americans.

In this beguiling drama, an undocumented Filipina immigrant paranoid about deportation works as a caregiver to a Russian-Jewish grandmother in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. When the American citizen she’s secretly paying for a green card marriage backs out, she becomes involved with a slaughterhouse worker who is unaware that she’s transgender.

If you're someone who prefer the action-packed films filled with special effects and superheroes, Lingua Franca is probably not for you. It might have more appeal for the type of filmgoer who wants to explore stories and meet people just outside of your real-life world and perhaps put yourself in someone else's shoes.

“It’s just reflective of the kind of person I am,” Sandoval told Variety. “In the film, what’s important is what’s left unsaid. The spaces carry more emotional weight between the characters.”

The auteur said she wants to “make films that linger; let the themes and emotions marinate. It’s not filmmaking with a megaphone or bullhorn. I set up limitations and tried to defy them.”