WRITER / DIRECTOR / PRODUCER

Patrick Epino is a screenwriter and director based in Los Angeles. His short film VETERANO premiered internationally at Fantasia, where it was selected for Official Competition, International Short Film, and won for Outstanding Performance. His feature script for VETERANO was selected for the 2025–2026 Producers Guild of America Create Lab, advanced to the second round of the 2025 Sundance Development Lab, and was a finalist for the 2025 Gotham Week Project Market.

Born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland and Berkeley, Patrick was a latchkey kid who grew up on home video and movie theaters. An actor’s director, he was inspired to make films by Spike Lee, John Cassavetes, and John Hughes. His debut feature, MR. SADMAN (Scoot McNairy, Qaid Al-Nomani), was an official selection of the Gotham Narrative Labs and Gotham Week. He co-directed the web series AWESOME ASIAN BAD GUYS (Randall Park, Tamlyn Tomita), which was adapted from a viral video on the National Film Society YouTube channel, part of PBS Digital Studios.

Patrick Epino is a writer, director, and producer based in Los Angeles. His work explores the lives of outsiders pushed to the margins of society, drawing on his personal experiences as a Filipino American latchkey kid born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.

His feature project VETERANO, a bank heist thriller, is a part of the 2025–2026 Producers Guild of America Create Lab. The script advanced to the second round of the 2025 Sundance Development Lab and was a finalist for the 2025 Gotham Week Project Market. A proof-of-concept short film was completed this past summer. His pilot SOUTH CITY, an original coming-of-age comedy series, was a finalist for the Film Independent Episodic Lab.

Patrick is the co-director, director of photography, and editor of IN PROXIMITY, a weekly podcast produced by Proximity Media. His debut feature, MR. SADMAN, a satirical dark comedy starring Scoot McNairy, was selected for the Gotham Narrative Labs. He co-created, co-directed, and produced AWESOME ASIAN BAD GUYS, an action comedy starring Randall Park and Tamlyn Tomita, which evolved from a popular video on Patrick’s National Film Society YouTube channel and was the first episodic project chosen for the Gotham’s Emerging Narrative Forum.

National Film Society was a founding member of PBS Digital Studios, and through its creative studio, Patrick has collaborated with Amazon, Filmmaker Magazine, Starz, and IMDb. He also directed and produced LONG DISTANCE, a narrative podcast and short documentary series about stories in the Filipino diaspora, selected for the inaugural Google Podcasts Creator Program.

VETERANO

Short Film • Crime Thriller
Writer/Director/Producer

An aging Filipino World War II veteran with nothing left to lose dusts off his past and his pistol for one last mission in 1981 San Francisco.

* Fantasia International Film Festival – Winner, Outstanding Performance, Jon Jon Briones; Official Competition, International Short Film.
* The feature length version of VETERANO currently in development is an Official Selection of the 2025–2026 Producers Guild of America Create Lab.
* Short film screening tour happening now. SCHEDULE HERE.

AWESOME ASIAN BAD GUYS

Feature Film • Action-Comedy
Director/Producer/Creator

An irreverent homage to the unsung villains of ’80s & ’90s action flicks, this nonstop action-comedy plunges a motley crew of washed up Asian bad guy actors into a deadly mission to take down Los Angeles’ most nefarious mob boss.

Starring Randall Park (Ant-Man and the Wasp, Fresh Off the Boat), Tamlyn Tomita (The Karate Kid Part II, The Good Doctor), Al Leong (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon), Dante Basco (Hook), Yuji Okumoto (The Karate Kid Part II), Aaron Takahashi (The Wedding Ringer), and George Cheung (Rambo: First Blood Part II).

* Official Selection of the IFP/Gotham Emerging Storytellers’ Project Forum.
* Distributed by Gunpowder & Sky (formerly FilmBuff) and available on digital platforms, including iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.

MR. SADMAN

Feature Film • Dark Comedy
Writer/Director

A satirical fish out of water story about a 1990 Saddam Hussein double who loses his job and moves to Los Angeles in search of a new life.

Starring Qaid Al-Nomani (Three Kings, Arrested Development), Scoot McNairy (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Narcos: Mexico), Amanda Fuller (Last Man Standing, Orange Is the New Black), Tim Kang (Magnum P.I., The Mentalist), and Rudy Ramos (Yellowstone, The High Chaparral).

* Official Selection of the IFP/Gotham Narrative Labs and IFP/Gotham Week.

VOID

Short Film • Comedy
Writer/Director

In a culture of quick fixes, a sad guy is trying to get happy—and so is everyone else.

* Distributed by Cinequest International.

SPUNK

Short Film • Comedy
Writer/Director

A man must come to terms with who and what he really is.

* Distributed by Microcinema’s Blackchair Collection.