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CinemAsia Film Festival 2025 presents its full program for the 17th edition, running March 6-11 in Amsterdam. Featuring 38 handpicked films – of which 27 feature films and 11 shorts, including 1 world and 4 European premieres – the lineup spans blockbusters, art-house gems, and independent productions.

Hosted at Eye Filmmuseum, Studio/K, Rialto De Pijp, and Rialto Vu, CinemAsia invites audiences on a cinematic journey through Asia’s rich storytelling, stunning visuals, and diverse cultural perspectives.

Grand Opening & Closing Films

Opening Film – Happyend by Neo Sora (Dutch premiere) – Director present at the festival.

The festival opens with the highly anticipated Happyend by Japanese-American filmmaker Neo Sora. Set in a dystopian near-future Tokyo overshadowed by an impending catastrophic earthquake, this visually stunning film explores identity and friendship in a world dominated by control and uncertainty.

Closing Film – Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong 2023) by Sasha Chuk (Dutch premiere) – Director present.

CinemAsia 2025 closes with Fly Me to the Moon,...

Exclusive: The Alternativa Film Project, a global non-profit film initiative founded by technology company inDrive, has unveiled its shortlisted films and jury for the upcoming Alternativa Film Awards.

This year’s edition will be hosted in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on November 29. Last year’s edition was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Organizers said that the Alternativa Film Awards aims to recognize films that address important social and cultural topics, and which also have an ambition to positively affect the lives of people and local communities.

This year’s edition received 670 submissions for the awards, twice as many as last year’s, with 25 films selected, including 13 feature-length films and 12 shorts, from 14 Asian countries and across 20 different languages.

Female-directed films make up nearly half of the selection and of the feature-length films, nine are debut works.

Jury members for this year’s edition include Indian filmmaker Anand Gandhi, Indonesian director Kamila Andini, German filmmaker and author Steffi Niederzoll,...

Malaysian drama Snow In Midsummer and Thai blockbuster How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies picked up the top prizes at the 23rd New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) on Sunday (July 28).

Snow In Midsummer won the Uncaged Award for best feature film in the festival’s main competition.

Directed by Chong Keat Aun, it is the first film to directly tackle the violent race riots that took place in Kuala Lumpur on May 13, 1969 and make it past Malaysian censors but with a string of cuts. Accepting the award in New York, the filmmaker said he hoped it would help...

The Thai-produced hit comedy “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” was Sunday announced as the winner of the audience prize at the New York Asian Film Festival.

The film, from Thai director Pat Boonnitipat, stars ‘Billkin’ Putthipong Assaratanakul as a slacker who quits his job to become his grandma’s caregiver. It has claimed box office records for a Thai or Asian film in multiple Asian territories. Both director and star were present at the festival.

“The 23rd edition of the New York Asian Film Festival has shattered expectations, proving that Asian cinema’s appeal continues to surge across the city. With our expanded lineup of nearly 100 films across 5 screens, we’ve witnessed an unprecedented 33% growth in both attendance and box office revenue. One-third of our screenings sold out within days, a testament to New Yorkers’ appetite for diverse storytelling. Our expanded Thai and Taiwanese sections were particular highlights,...

Making its California premiere is the mystery-thriller short “Cross My Heart and Hope to Die” from director Sam Manasca. It was an official selection at last year’s Venice Film Festival and is currently making the festival rounds. The film is centered around Mila, a lowly clerk who finds solace with a mysterious man and his

The post Shortfest Spotlight: Filipino Short “Cross My Heart and Hope to Die” appeared first on Manny the Movie Guy.

The Screen Daily folks have unveiled the projects and participants for TorinoFilmLab’s 2024 ScriptLab and of the 16 projects we find the likes of Brazilian filmmaker Carolina Markowicz, Spanish helmer Mikel Gurrea and Artemis Shaw. Here are the ScriptLab 2024 projects and participants:

Atropical Energy – Writer/director João Salgado (Port)

Eva – Writer/director Jonas Matzow Guldbrandsen (Nor), co-writer Norah Mc Gettigan (Ire)

Explorer – Writer/director Hilke Rönnfeldt (Ger)

Human Resource – Writer/director Stefan Bohun (Austria)

Josie Goes to War – Writer/director Coline Confort (Fr/Switz), co-writer Perrine Prost (Fr)

Kindergarten Optimisten – Writer/director Anastasia Veber (Ger)

On the Way to Forgive I Forgot Myself – Writer/director Rand Abou Fakher (Syria)

Sants – Writer/director Mikel Gurrea (Sp)

Smokescreen – Writer/director Artemis Shaw (Gr/US)

The Criminals – Writer/director Serhat Karaaslan (Tur)

The Dance of the Shadows – Writer/director Kathy Mitrani (Col/US)

The Funeral – Writer/director Carolina Markowicz (Braz/It)

The Hallucinations – Writer...

TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has selected 16 projects for ScriptLab 2024, its feature film programme focused on fiction projects in early stage of development.

Of the 16 feature projects, eight are debut feature films, five are sophomore efforts, and three represent third features.

Scroll down for the full list of participants

Among the participants are Screen Spain Star of Tomorrow writer and director Mikel Gurrea, whose debut film Cork (Suro) premiered at San Sebastian in 2022 and writer and director Artemis Shaw whose debut feature New Strains won a Special Jury Award at IFFR 2023. Also selected is writer/director Andrea Gatopoulos whose 2022 film Happy New Year,...

Full Circle Lab Philippines, the Southeast Asian project and talent development programme, has revealed the line-up for its upcoming sixth edition, including a drama set against the backdrop of The Beatles infamous visit to Manila in 1966.

The labs will comprise eight projects in development, three films in post-production, eight emerging producers and three story editors. A total of 35 participants and 10 mentors are set to participate in the in-person workshop, held in the Central Luzon region in the north of Manila from March 19-24, followed by online sessions, which run until September.

Scroll down for full list of projects and participants...

As we have mentioned many times the past few years, it seems that the future of Asian cinema lies somewhere among the Asean countries, with the filmmakers from the particular region having both the inspiration and the command of the medium to present new things, both in terms of stories and cinematic approach. Malaysia in particular seems to have one of its greatest years in that regard, with the huge success of “Tiger Stripes” being the tip of the iceberg. Indonesian audience seems to have returned to cinemas even more massively than before the pandemic, the Filipino film industry is also experiencing a boom in the last few years, particularly in amount of titles, while the rest of the countries in the region are following close by, mostly through approaches that combine genre with art-house filmmaking.

Without further ado, here are 30 movies that highlighted all the aforementioned in 2023, in reverse order,...

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

The jury comprised of Indian director Anup Singh, Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak, Palestinian actress Yasmine Al-Massri, French Lebanese actress Manal Issa and Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy.

In the non-fiction category, Ibrahim Nash’at’s acclaimed documentary “Hollywoodgate” took the top prize, with “Seven Winters in Tehran” and Mila Turajlić’s Serbian film “Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels” sharing the Silver Star, and “On the Adamant,” directed by French director Nicolas Philibert, taking the Bronze Star. The...

Sam Manacsa worked as Art Director on award-winning films such as Carlo Francisco Manatad's “Whether the Weather Is Fine”. Her short film, “If People Such as We Cease to Exist” (2016), was selected at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Competition. “Cross My Heart and Hope To Die”was selected to premiere at the 80th La Biennale Venice International Film Festival in the official Orizzonti Short Films Competition and was later screened in Qcinema. The short has already received a number of awards from all over the world, while it is also worth mentioning that a number of filmmakers are also involved in an all-star production that also includes Yov Moor as colorist.

Cross My Heart and Hope to Die screened at Qcinema

The movie begins with a scene that would be laughably absurd if it was not so shockingly dramatic, essentially setting the tone for the film and justifying a number of...

Pham Thien An’s “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” which previously won the Golden Camera at Cannes, has won the Asian Feature Film Competition at the 34th Singapore International Film Festival.

Yoon Eun-Kyung won best director for “The Tenants,” which also won the Fipresci award. “Dreaming & Dying,” by Singaporean director Nelson Yeo earned a special mention. Yu Yi-Hsun won best screenplay for “A Journey in Spring” and the film also won best performance for Yang Kuei-Mei.

The Audience Choice Award went to “Goodbye Julia” by Mohamed Kordofani.

In the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition, the best Southeast Asian short film was awarded to “The River That Never Ends” by J.T. Trinidad, which also scored a special mention for actor Emerald Romero. “I Look Into the Mirror and Repeat to Myself” by Giselle Lin won best Singapore short film. Best director went to Sam Manacsa for “Cross My Heart and...

A loss of funding compounded by the pandemic has contributed to the closure.

The Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (Seafic) is set to close operations, six years after becoming the first ever script lab in the region.

The non-profit foundation, which helped Southeast Asian filmmakers working on their first, second or third feature-length scripts, cited a lack of funding as well as the ongoing pandemic as reasons for having to shutter the organisation.

“The loss of funders, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic which has made finding new support much more difficult, are the main deciding factors for this,” said Seafic in a statement released today.

Five filmmakers from Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam have been selected to participate in the inaugural Seed Lab, operated by the non-profit Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab.

The new program helps promising shorts filmmakers explore their directorial voices prior to the development of their first features. It is being operated in partnership with the Festival des 3 Continents’ Produire au Sud program.

The first session of Seed Lab will run online December 4-10, 2021, with a second in-person session in Phuket, Thailand, in early April 2022.

San Danech from Cambodia had previous shorts that won prizes at the Singapore Film Festival and was selected in Busan’s Wide Angle competition. The Philippines’ Sam Manacsa is an Asian Film Academy alumnus whose most recent short was in competition in Clermont-Ferrand. Singapore’s Shoki Lin, was in Cannes’ Cinefondation and won awards at festivals worldwide with “Adam.” CalArts graduate Tulapop Saenjaroen from...

Five filmmakers have been selected for the inaugural lab from Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Seafic (Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab) has launched a new script and development lab, Seed Lab, which aims to help promising short filmmakers from Southeast Asia prior to the development of their first features.

The first edition will be held in two sessions – the first taking pace online December 4-10 and the second in person in Phuket, Thailand, in early April 2022.

Five filmmakers have been selected for the inaugural lab from Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. All five have had short...