With her third feature, filmmaker Isabel Sandoval delivers impressive turns both behind and in front of the camera in this heartfelt and semi-autobiographical docudrama. Olivia (Sandoval), an undocumented trans woman from the Philippines, works as a caretaker for an elderly Russian Jewish woman named Olga (Sex and the City’s Lynn Cohen) in Brooklyn, financially supporting both herself and her family back home. When the man she’s paying to marry her for a green card begins showing cold feet, Olivia’s all-consuming fear of deportation escalates dramatically. But her life takes an unexpected turn when a romantic connection starts to blossom with Olga’s black sheep grandson Alex (Twin Peaks: The Return’s Eamon Farren). With ICE raids perpetually hovering in the background, Lingua Franca takes a sobering, timely look at the anxieties and fears that plague both immigrants and transgender people in the U.S. today.

Writer/director/actor Isabel Sandoval is expected to be in attendance on January 8, 9, and 10.