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QCinema Project Market (Qpm) wrapped this weekend with an awards ceremony in which cash prizes and in-kind services worth $442,000 were handed out to projects from the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia.

The event is part of an expanding roster of industry programs at QCinema International Film Festival (November 8-17), one of the Philippines’ major film gatherings, hosted by Quezon City, which is the largest city within the vast metropolitan area of Metro Manila.

While the festival has been running for 12 years, Qpm (November 14-16) was holding its second edition this year, and was joined by the launch of Asian Next Wave Film Forum, a series of panel discussions, masterclasses and case studies of regional co-productions.

Qpm selected 20 projects, including 13 from the Philippines and seven from the rest of Southeast Asia. Winning projects included Myanmar-Indonesia co-production The Beer Girl In Yangon and upcoming works from Filipino filmmakers Martika Ramirez Escobar,...

The Philippines’ QCinema Project Market (Qpm) handed out $442,000 (PHP26M) in grants and co-production support at its closing ceremony on November 16.

Three projects from the Philippines received the QCinema Project Market Philippine Co-Production Grant, each valued at $ 34,000 (PHP2M) – Daughters Of The Sea, from Martika Ramirez Escobar; Heaven Help Us, directed by Eve Baswel, and Sonny Calvento’s Mother Maybe.

The QCinema Project Market – Southeast Asia Co-Production Grant, worth $17,000 (PHP1M) was awarded to Myanmar-Indonesia co-production The Beer Girl In Yangon, directed by Sein Lyan Tun. In addition, co-production grants of $12,000 each were presented to Other People’s Dreams, directed by Singapore’s Daniel Hui, and The Passport, from Malaysia’s Ananth Subramaniam.

Qpm’s industry partners also handed out several awards including Nathan Studios’ development grant of PHP250,000, which went to Secret Cries, while the Taiwan Creative Content Agency presented the $5,000 Taicca Award to Ewa, the sole animation...

Vietnam talent showed strong presence at the 12th QCinema International Film Festival in Quezon City, Philippines, as Trương Minh Quý’s “Viet and Nam” claimed the top prize, while compatriot Dương Diệu Linh’s “Don’t Cry, Butterfly” secured the Grand Jury Prize.

“Viet and Nam,” which made its debut in Cannes Un Certain Regard, emerged victorious in the Asian Next Wave competition. The jury, comprising Babyruth Villarama, Gabor Greiner, Ming-Jung Kuo and Nguyen Le, praised the film for “conjuring the haunting presence of trauma and memories that are embedded within the landscape, and tenderly following a romance that unfolds deep within the coal mines.”

“Don’t Cry, Butterfly,” Dương’s debut feature, follows a middle-aged wife who, upon discovering her husband’s infidelity, embarks on a mystical journey in search of a better life. The film previously won three prizes at Venice.

Elizabeth Lo took home the Best Director award for “Mistress Dispeller,...

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,...

The Philippines’ QCinema International Film Festival has locked its 12th edition lineup, with Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cloud” — Japan’s submission for the 97th Academy Awards — set to close the November event. The festival opens with “Directors’ Factory Philippines,” an eight-filmmaker omnibus collaboration with Cannes Directors’ Fortnight that pairs Filipino directors with counterparts from across Asia.

The omnibus features four films: Eve Baswel and Malaysia’s Gogularaajan Rajendran direct “Walay Balay”; Maria Estela Paiso teams with India’s Ashok Vish for “Nightbirds”; Arvin Belarmino collaborates with Cambodia’s Lomorpich Rithy on “Silig”; and Don Eblahan partners with Singapore’s Tan Siyou for “Cold Cut.”

The Quezon City-based fest will unspool 77 titles, including 55 features and 22 shorts, across 11 sections under this year’s theme “The Gaze.”

In the main competition Asian Next Wave, eight features compete: Duong Dieu Linh’s Venice Critics’ Week grand prize winner “Don’t Cry Butterfly”; Nelicia Low’s “Pierce...

Vietnam’s Beta Media and Japan’s Aeon Entertainment have forged a joint venture that will plough $200m (VND5tn) into 50 premium cinema complexes in Vietnam and see the duo enter film production and distribution, opening up new horizons for the local film industry.

The first cinema complex under the Aeon Beta Cinema brand is expected to open its doors in 2025, with all 50 complexes to be built in provinces across Vietnam in the same year.

This strategic partnership leverages on the expertise of both parties. Aeon Entertainment is Japan’s largest cinema chain in terms of the number of theatres and screens,...

As cinephiles talk of Asian filmmaking doyens, short films seem to fall off the radar, even if many outstanding short films from Asian are released every year. Diverse in genre, style, story, and length, we highlight below some recent Asian short films that are truly memorable in some way — perhaps for different audiences, but deserving of a watch all the same. The list below is presented in chronological order by release year, then alphabetically by production country.

1. Counterfeit Kunkoo by Reema Sengupta

A young single woman, Smita (Kani Kusruti), lives in Mumbai and is trying to find an apartment to rent in the city. However, as an unmarried woman, the landlords refuse to take her seriously, refusing her tenancy at every turn despite the undeniable fact that she would be a perfect resident. Although she tries many tricks to get around the patriarchal system, Smita begins to realize how futile her search might be.

The Jeonju International Film Festival, South Korea’s second most important generalist film festival, on Tuesday announced “The Major Tones” and “Time to Be Strong” as the Grand Prix winners of its two competition sections. The festival continues until Friday.

Directed by Argentina’s Ingrid Pokropek, “The Major Tones” is a mystery film about a youngster with a metal plate in her arm which begins to receive peculiar messages in Morse Code. It premiered at the Mar del Plata festival and also played in Berlin’s Generation KPlus section. In Jeonju it won the international section.

The Korean section was dominated by “Time to Be Strong,” the sophomore effort of director Namkoong Sun. In addition to the Korean competition’s Grand Prix, it also shared the best actor award and picked up the Watch award from a local streamer.

The film follows three former K-pop idol singers whose careers have...

The Mammoth Lakes Film Festival revealed its lineup for this year’s festival, taking place from May 22 – 26 at venues across Mammoth Lakes.

The festival will open with the California premiere of director Lucy Lawless’ “Never Look Away,” which follows a CNN combat camerawoman who gets injured and must find the strength to carry on. The closing night features “Black Box Diaries,” directed by Shiori Ito, who investigates her own sexual assault through the film.

A Short Films Program will also be featured at the festival, consisting of 38 narrative shorts, 20 documentary shorts, 10 animation shorts and a program of music videos and a screenplay competition.

The Mlff film lineup is as follows:

North American Narrative Features:

All I’ve Got and Then Some

Tehben Dean and Rasheed Stephens | United States

Atikamekw Suns

Chloé Leriche | Canada

Psykhodrame

Miles Blim | United States

The Last Night in the Life of Death

Isaiah Brody | United States...

Jeonju Jaunt

Korea’s second largest generalist film event the Jeonju International Film Festival has set eight fiction films by first or second-time feature directors, for its main competition.

They are “Cu Li Never Cries,” by Pham Ngoc Lan; “Junkyard Dog,” by Jean-Baptiste Durand, “La Palisiada,” by Philip Sotnychenko; “My Endless Numbered Days,” by Shaun Neo; “Oxygen Station,” by Ivan Tymchenko; “Practice,” by Laurens Perol; “The Major Tones,” by Ingrid Pokropek; and “The Permanent Picture,” by Laura Ferres.

Additionally, two documentary features also compete: “After the Snowmelt,” directed by Lo Yi-Shan and “Kix,” by Balint Revesz and David Mikulan.

The Covid-pandemic continues to affect filmmaking and festival selection, organizers said. “Even films planned to be made beforehand had to extend their production period due to the pandemic, and many works highlighted the limitations of the production environments, such as smaller cast numbers and minimal locations,” said chief programmer Chun Jinsu.

Unfolding in a Hanoi of twisting alleyways and cramped apartments, Cu Li Never Cries follows a half-dozen intertwined characters whose lives are in upheaval. Mrs. Nguyện (Minh Châu), a widow, has been gifted with a pet slow cu li, a tiny primate that may be more trouble than it’s worth. Her niece Vân (Hà Phương) helps run a day-care center on the verge of bankruptcy. Her fiancé Quang (Xuân An) has doubts about both their wedding and his future. The film’s glistening black-and-white imagery and soundtrack of patriotic anthems evoke a timeless world rarely seen in Western cinema. At the […]

The post Cutting Costs in Black and White: Phạm Ngọc Lân ơn Cu Li Never Cries first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Unfolding in a Hanoi of twisting alleyways and cramped apartments, Cu Li Never Cries follows a half-dozen intertwined characters whose lives are in upheaval. Mrs. Nguyện (Minh Châu), a widow, has been gifted with a pet slow cu li, a tiny primate that may be more trouble than it’s worth. Her niece Vân (Hà Phương) helps run a day-care center on the verge of bankruptcy. Her fiancé Quang (Xuân An) has doubts about both their wedding and his future. The film’s glistening black-and-white imagery and soundtrack of patriotic anthems evoke a timeless world rarely seen in Western cinema. At the […]

The post Cutting Costs in Black and White: Phạm Ngọc Lân ơn Cu Li Never Cries first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival (May 1-10) has revealed the full programme for its 25th edition, which will include a series of screenings to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster.

The festival will comprise 232 films from 43 countries, opening with Sho Miyake’s romantic drama All The Long Nights and closing with Kazik Radwanski’s Canadian drama Matt And Mara. Both screened at the Berlinale in February.

Among the line-up are six films to commemorate the sinking of the Sewol ferry on April 16, 2014, in which more than 300 people died, most of them high school students on a field trip.

We’ve got films dating back to the last edition of Cannes, threaded in there are items from Locarno, Venice and more recent items from Sundance and even a Berlinale winner in Cu Li Never Cries by Pham Ngoc Lân. The complete 2024 New Directors/New Films lineup has been unveiled and the fest will open with Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man (the Sundance premiere and Berlinale winner for Best Actor) which played well for critics at both fest preems and Nd/Nf will end with Theda Hammel’s Stress Positions – also a recent Sundance title. Here is the complete line-up below

All, or Nothing at All dir.…...

The New Directors/New Films lineup boasts a slew of 2024 festival breakout features.

The annual festival, presented by Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, will take place from April 3 to April 14 at Film at Lincoln Center. Sundance premiere “A Different Man,” Berlinale best first feature winner “Cu Li Never Cries,” and Locarno Film Festival winner “A Good Place” are among this year’s standout titles.

The 53rd annual festival celebrates rising filmmakers who redefine the state of cinema. The 2024 lineup includes 25 features and 10 short films, including one world premiere. “A Different Man,” directed by Aaron Schimberg and co-starring Berlinale best actor winner Sebastian Stan, will open the festival April 3. Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions,” which also premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, will close New Directors/New Films April 14. Both features were directed by New York City-based filmmakers.

“It just feels right for us to bookend...

Mati Diop’s documentary Dahomey, about artefacts being returned from Paris to present-day Benin, was awarded the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival tonight (February 24).

The film, handled internationally by Les Film du Losange, is the second from the African continent to take the Berlinale’s top prize after Mark Dornford-May’s musical U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in 2005. It is also the second year in a row that a documentary has clinched the Golden Bear, following Nicolas Philibert’s On The Adamant last year.

In her speech, Diop said: “To restitute is to do justice. We can...

World sales agency Square Eyes has boarded Vietnamese drama “Cu Li Never Cries,” which has its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. Variety debuts the trailer below.

The film is directed by Phạm Ngọc Lân, who wrote the screenplay with Nghiêm Quỳnh Trang. The cast includes Minh Châu, Hà Phương, Xuân An, Hoàng Hà and Cao Sang.

In the film, Mrs. Nguyện picks up the ashes of her long-estranged husband in Germany, and returns to her Vietnamese home. In her luggage she is carrying a pygmy slow loris, a species of primate from the Vietnamese rainforest, which she has inherited from the deceased.

Her young niece, who lives with her, is preparing for her wedding. The young couple anxiously ponder their uncertain future together. The present in which the characters live and the complex echoes of Vietnamese history intertwine in a contemplative and poetic way.

Austria-based sales company has acquired world sales rights on two Berlinale Panorama titles: Nelson Makengo’s Rising Up At Night, and Pham Ngoc Lan’s Cu Li Never Cries.

Both films were in the Panorama selection that was announced earlier today.

Rising Up At Night is Congolese director Makengo’s debut feature, and a continuation of his short Up At Night, which won the IDFA award for best short in 2019. The documentary shows the residents of Kinshasa, Congo struggle for access to light after the city is plunged into darkness.

The film is produced by Rosa Spaliviero for Belgium’s Twenty Nine Studio & Production,...

Vietnamese Writer-director Le Bao and Singapore and Toronto-based producer Lai Weijie, who collaborated successfully on “Taste” (2021), are reuniting for Busan Asian Project Market title “The Sea is Calm Tonight.”

“Taste,” Le’s feature debut, had considerable festival play and won awards at Berlin, Singapore, Taipei and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

In “The Sea is Calm Tonight,” Vietnamese boat people of 40 years past have a miraculous meeting with Rohingya refugees of the present in their parallel sea journeys to find peace.

“When my mother was pregnant with me, my parents lived on a barge amidst a large river. Whenever a strong gust of wind blew or boats crossed the river, the water surface would accumulate into waves, like sea waves. When I was younger, my parents told me that they wished my name was Lê Biển, which means the sea. The thought of this other life with a different identity lingers in my mind,...

Fresh off a standing ovation for auteur Lav Diaz’s “When the Waves Are Gone” at the Venice Film Festival, the Philippines’ Epicmedia Productions has revealed a global co-production slate.

Next up is Swiss co-production “Electric Child” by Simon Jacquemet (“The Innocent”), which was presented at the Venice Production Bridge last year. The story revolves around a couple whose child develops an unusual illness. While the mother and baby drift into their own world, the computer-science professor father develops a pact with an A.I. character on a virtual island to save his child. The project, which is starting production imminently, is supported by the Film Location Incentive Fund of the Film Development Council of the Philippines, the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, the Zurich Film Foundation, Filmstiftung Nrw and TV channels Srf and Arte.

Truong Minh Quy (“The Tree House”) is in preproduction on “Viet and Nam,” which follows...

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.

Next month’s lineup at The Criterion Channel has been unveiled, featuring no shortage of excellent offerings. Leading the pack is a massive, 20-film retrospective dedicated to John Huston, featuring a mix of greatest and lesser-appreciated works, including Fat City, The Dead, Wise Blood, The Man Who Would Be King, and Key Largo. (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre will join the series on October 1.)

Also in the lineup is series on the works of Budd Boetticher (specifically his Randolph Scott-starring Ranown westerns), Ephraim Asili, Josephine Baker, Nikos Papatakis, Jean Harlow, Lee Isaac Chung (pre-Minari), Mani Kaul, and Michelle Parkerson.

The sparkling new restoration of La Piscine will also debut, along with Amores perros, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth, Cate Shortland’s Lore, both Oxhide films, Moonstruck, and much more.

See the full list of August titles below and more on The Criterion Channel.

Abigail Harm,...

Indian drama film “Milestone” (aka “Meel Patthar”) was named the best film at the Silver Screen Awards, the closing event of the Singapore International Film Festival. The festival is a cornerstone of the Singapore Media Festival consumer and industry event.

Directed by Ivan Ayr, “Milestone” recounts the foretaste of doom that follows a veteran truck driver when his vehicle passes half a million kilometers and he is asked to train a younger operator. The film also earned lead actor Suvinder Vicky, the Silver Screen award for best performer.

It premiered at the Venice festival in September, in its Horizons section, before going on to play at the Pingyao and Stockholm festivals. In Singapore it played in the competition that is reserved for first and second features hailing from the Asia region. Ayr made his feature debut with the 2018 Delhi crime drama “Soni.”

The prize for best director went to Dea Kulumbegashvili...

While movements such as Fridays for Future and environmental organizations showing us the footprint humans leave on the earth, the amount of destruction and exploitation, from the extinction of species to deforestation, it is hard to grasp just how much change the advent of humanity has brought to the planet. In his 2007 non-fictional book titled “The World Without Us” US author Alan Weisman used research and interviews with scientists and experts in order to present how the world would develop if suddenly mankind would cease to exist, at times with scary and quite revealing results and images. Using the Mekong River Delta as a starting point, the anthology “Mekong 2030” features the vignettes by Anocha Suwichakornpong, Anysay Keola, Kulikar Sotho, Pham ngoc Lan and Sai Naw Kham, and follows a similar idea with Weisman’s, making predictions on the changes of the landscape and its inhabitants in ten years time.

“Mekong...

While movements such as Fridays for Future and environmental organizations show us the footprint humans leave on the earth, the amount of destruction and exploitation, from the extinction of species to deforestation, it is hard to grasp just how much change the advent of humanity has brought to the planet. In his 2007 non-fictional book titled “The World Without Us” US author Alan Weisman used research and interviews with scientists and experts in order to present how the world would develop if suddenly mankind would cease to exist, at times with scary and quite revealing results and images. Using the Mekong River Delta as a starting point, the anthology “Mekong 2030” features the vignettes by Anocha Suwichakornpong, Anysay Keola, Kulikar Sotho, Pham ngoc Lan and Sai Naw Kham, and follows a similar idea as Weisman, making assumption on the changes of the landscape and its inhabitants in ten years time.

“Mekong 2030” is...

Six countries feature across this year’s Sørfond fund projects.

The Norwegian Film Institute has awarded Nok 3m to six international co-productions with Norwegian minority producers.

The six projects were chosen from 45 applications to the Sørfond fund, which exists to support film production in developing countries where it is limited for political or economic reasons.

They were selected by a jury composed of editor and Norwegian Film School professor Sophie Hesselberg; producer and director Sebastián Peña Escobar; and Films From The South Festival project manager Per Eirik Gilsvik.

The jury held its discussions remotely, with Hesselberg and Gilsvik joining from Oslo,...

The 30th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) announced its full Festival line-up at the Shangri-La Hotel today, staying true to its roots as a discovery ground of the spirited stories in Southeast Asia, an enabler to the regional filmmaking scene and talents, and a tastemaker of global developments in cinema.

A leading international film festival in the region and part of the Singapore Media Festival (Smf), Sgiff will present a dynamic array of over 90 films by auteurs from 40 countries that take the pulse of Asian and international cinema.

Sgiff’s Programme Director, Kuo Ming-Jung said, “In the past year, captivating stories told by brilliant filmmakers have unfolded in varying styles and genres across the global cinematic landscape. As with our line-up each year, we hope to bring distinctive films from around the world to the audience, while staying committed to the strong belief in giving a voice to our own...

After making a handful of award-winning shorts, Filipina filmmaker Antoinette Jadaone made her feature debut in 2011 with “Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay” that received considerable festival play, including at Busan in 2012.

Her 2014 film, “That Thing Called Tadhana” is one of the highest grossing independent films in the Philippines. In addition, Jadaone has directed several studio-backed mainstream romantic comedies and dramas. Her “Fan Girl” that was at the Busan international Film Festival’s 2018 Asian Project Market is in post-production now. She returns to the project market with “Boldstar”, a project that was conceptualized in 2016 and is being realized now.

“Around 20 years ago, the soft porn genre was all the rage in Philippine cinema,” Jadaone told Variety. “We had what we call ‘boldstars,’ the female protagonists in these usually low-budget, but high-grossing, ‘bold’ films. Then the rom-com genre began to rise to popularity, and the boldstars were replaced by the quirky leading ladies.

Indonesian filmmaker Makbul Mubarak’s “Autobiography” scooped the top prize at Locarno Festival’s Open Doors Hub co-production forum, which is focused on feature film projects from South-East Asia and Mongolia. Eight producers took part in the Hub, looking for international partners for their films.

“Autobiography,” produced by Yulia Evina Bhara, takes home the Open Doors Grant of Chf 50,000 in production support, granted by the Swiss fund Visions Sud Est, and backed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Sdc, and the City of Bellinzona.

The film centers on 18-year-old Rakib, who is left to look after an aristocratic mansion. The owner, a military general, becomes a surrogate father to the young man. Intensely loyal, Rakib doesn’t hesitate to track down a teenager who has stolen one of the general’s election posters, kicking off an increasingly violent and terrifying series of events.

Other Hub winners were Vietnamese...

This year’s lab began a three-year focus on the region.

The 2019 Locarno Film Festival has named the prizewinners from its international co-production event Open Doors Hub and producers training workshop Open Doors Lab.

This year’s Open Doors event, held as part of Locarno’s industry programme Locarno Pro, was the beginning of a three-year focus on Southeast Asia and Mongolia.

The Lab event welcomed nine producers from the region for training, while the Hub welcomed eight full-length features from the region seeking international partners.

From the Hub event, the Open Doors Grant, a $51,398 production award financed by Swiss...

This year’s lab began a three-year focus on the region.

The 2019 Locarno Film Festival has named the prizewinners from its international co-production event Open Doors Hub and producers training workshop Open Doors Lab.

This year’s Open Doors event, held as part of Locarno’s industry programme Locarno Pro, was the beginning of a three-year focus on Southeast Asia and Mongolia.

The Lab event welcomed nine producers from the region for training, while the Hub welcomed eight full-length features from the region seeking international partners.

From the Hub event, the Open Doors Grant, a $51,398 production award financed by Swiss...

Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Ngoc Lan is all set to make his feature debut with his satirical comedy-drama “Cu Li Never Cries,” which is being presented in Locarno Festival’s Open Doors program.

In the film, Lady M., a blue-collar retiree in Vietnam, returns to Berlin when she learns that her estranged German husband has died. The legacy her husband has left her is an urn with his ashes and Cu Li, his pet pygmy slow Loris (a primate found primarily in Southeast Asia). Upon returning to Vietnam, Lady M. finds that her pregnant niece Van is rushing into marriage, and fears that she will make the same life mistakes as she did. Lady M. proceeds to embark upon a journey retracing her memories, evoking Vietnam’s storied past.

Lan’s shorts have travelled the world. His 2016 short “Another City” was nominated for the Golden Bear at Berlin and has won...

The Locarno Festival’s Open Doors platform dedicated to promoting cinema in areas where filmmaking is especially tough, has unveiled the 8 projects, directors, and producers from 7 countries in South-East Asia and Mongolia who will make the trek to Switzerland for networking and training opportunities.

The selected projects include “The Thonglor Kids” by Thai director Aditya Assarat, produced by Fran Borgia, who also produced last year’s Golden Leopard winner “A Land Imagined,” by Singapore’s Yeo Siew Hua (pictured).

Vietnamese director Chuyen Bui Thac, whose second feature “Adrift,” set in Hanoi, premiered at Venice in 2009, will be attending the Asian cinema incubator with his latest project “Glorious Ashes” centered on the hardships and love lives of three women in a poor coastal village.

Locarno’s Open Doors program this year is entering a new three-year cycle dedicated to Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Mongolia.

The event’s co-production platform,...

Eight projects for the Hub, nine producers for the Lab.

Open Doors, the industry sidebar of Locarno Film Festival dedicated to Southeast Asian film, has selected eight projects for its Hub and nine upcoming producers to participate in its Lab for the 2019 edition.

The projects chosen for the Hub include The Thonglor Kids from Thai director Aditya Assarat, produced by Fran Borgia, who also produced last year’s Golden Leopard winner at Locarno, A Land Imagined.

Vietnamese director Chuyen Bui Thac, whose second feature Adrift premiered at Venice in 2009, will attend with his project Glorious Ashes.

Seven countries are represented across the eight projects,...

Projects include three Southeast Asian narrative features and two documentaries.

Bangkok-based film fund Purin Pictures has unveiled the five Southeast Asian projects, including three narrative features and two documentaries, that will receive grants in its autumn 2018 funding round.

The three features, which will be awarded $30,000 production grants, include Pham Ngoc Lan’s Cu Li Never Cries, a co-production between Vietnam and the Philippines, along with projects from Singapore’s Chen-Hsi Wong and Nicole Midori Woodford, the latter with a Singapore-Japan co-production.

The two documentaries, which will receive post-production grants of $50,000 in services, are Cambodian filmmaker Kavich Neang’s Last Night...

Line-up for first Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab includes debut fiction film from Nontawat Numbenchapol, whose documentary #Bkky is premiering at Busan.

The Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (Seafic) has unveiled the five projects selected for its first edition, including the debut fiction film from Nontawat Numbenchapol, whose documentary #Bkky is currently premiering at Busan.

Nontawat’s first two documentaries, Boundary and By The River, premiered at the Berlinale Forum and Locarno Film Festival in 2013, respectively.

Seafic invites first second and third-time filmmakers to work with a script consultant and international experts for nine months to develop their projects. In total, Seafic received 57 applications from nearly every Southeast Asian country.

The inaugural line-up also includes the debut feature from Pham Ngoc Lan, to be produced by Vietnamese filmmaker Phan Dang Di (Bi, Don’t Be Afraid), and the second film from Sivaroj Kongsakul, to be produced by Thai director-producer Pimpaka Towira (The Island Funeral). See full project...

The Busan film fest’s Asian Project Market (Apm) has highlighted a “strong presence” of women filmmakers in this year’s line-up.

A total of 27 titles from 16 countries have been selected including projects from names including Yim Soon-rye, Tan Chui Mui and Laila Pakalnina.

In its 19th year, the Apm (formerly called the Pusan Promotion Plan or Ppp) said it tried to go back to its original mission of discovering up-and-coming talent with a selection that includes Pavle Vuckovic - who debuted last year in Cannes with Panama - bringing his Serbian thriller Mountain Eyes and Lei Lei with her debut feature animation Ningdu,which has Isabelle Glachant attached as a producer.

Apm stated it saw “an increased interest and more submissions by female directors and producers” this year. Yim is bringing Project Lee Jung-Seob, based on the legendary Korean artist’s life, while Tan has Malaysian coming-of-age drama All About Yuyu and Pakalnina has Latvia-Estonia...

The 2016 Berlinale Shorts program will include new films by Pham Ngoc Lan, Wu Linfeng, Leonor Teles, Esteban Arrangoiz, Diego Zon, Ronny Trocker, Gabriel Abrantes, Ben Russell, Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck, Christine Rebet, Chiang Wei Liang, Volker Schlecht and Alexander Lahl, Réka Bucsi, Mahdi Fleifel, Joanna Rytel, Rubén Gámez, Jonathan Vinel in collaboration with Caroline Poggi, Bentley Brown, Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller, Pimpaka Towira, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ricky D’Ambrose, Rotem Murat, Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann and Paul Spengemann, Siegfried A. Fruhauf, and Akihito Izuhara. » - David Hudson...

The 2016 Berlinale Shorts program will include new films by Pham Ngoc Lan, Wu Linfeng, Leonor Teles, Esteban Arrangoiz, Diego Zon, Ronny Trocker, Gabriel Abrantes, Ben Russell, Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck, Christine Rebet, Chiang Wei Liang, Volker Schlecht and Alexander Lahl, Réka Bucsi, Mahdi Fleifel, Joanna Rytel, Rubén Gámez, Jonathan Vinel in collaboration with Caroline Poggi, Bentley Brown, Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller, Pimpaka Towira, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ricky D’Ambrose, Rotem Murat, Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann and Paul Spengemann, Siegfried A. Fruhauf, and Akihito Izuhara. » - David Hudson...

A total of 25 films selected for competitive programme.

The Berlinale (Feb 11-21) has unveiled the 25 short films from 21 countries that will compete for the Golden and Silver Bear, a nomination for the European Film Awards and, for the second consecutive year, the Audi Short Film Award worth € 20,000.

The short film jury is comprised of the curator and director of the Sharjah Biennial in the UAE, Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi; Greek curator and writer Katerina Gregos; and Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi.

Among others, the competition will include films from Gabriel Abrantes, Pimpaka Towira, Réka Bucsi, Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller, and Siegfried A. Fruhauf.

Ben Russell, who won plaudits at festivals around the world with A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness, will present He Who Eats Children, described as “a speculative portrait of a Dutchman living in the Surinamese jungle fixing canoe motors, accused of eating the locals’ children”.

Also among the line-up is a new documentary by [link...