A middle-aged, Korean-drama obsessed widow from Singapore travels out of the country for the first time to Seoul, and ends up getting lost. Her journey becomes an unexpected road of self discovery, as she comes to terms with the life she truly wants for herself, beyond her roles of daughter, wife and mother.

He Shuming is a writer-director from Singapore. He was educated at the Puttnam School of Film and Animation, LASALLE College of The Arts in Singapore and then at the American Film Institute Conservatory (AFI), where he completed his MFA in directing. AJOOMMA is his debut feature film.

Most recently, he was conferred the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council, one of the most distinguished honors for the arts in Singapore.

Arnold is a clever student who has won many academic awards. One day, he meets Bee who runs an underground business helping students cheat on their exams. Bee asks Arnold to join his cheating ring and offers him a lot of money. While Arnold considers working with Bee, many of his schoolmates, unhappy with their school’s disrespect of their freedom, organise a big protest.

Sorayos Prapapan

Sorayos PRAPAPAN (b. 1986, Thailand) is an independent filmmaker. He has directed several short films which have won awards in his home country and have been screened at many international film festivals including Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam and Clermont-Ferrand.
His first feature film Arnold Is A Model Student was selected for the 2022 Locarno Film Festival.

If animals were in power, would they base their behavior on humans? Would they practice excessive, unfettered consumption to the point of destroying their environment? Would they adopt human flaws? Would they have the same thirst for power; the same cruelty? Would they choose to govern through demagoguery, terror, or totalitarianism? What would images mean? Art and cinema, or surveillance and questionable doings?  Would they get along with the “ancients” – meaning the humans, or would they enslave them? Would they have the desire and strength to resist evil tendencies and inclinations? Would they have empathy for their fellow creatures and all the living beings with whom they share the planet?

RITHY PANH

Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Rithy Panh arrived in Paris in 1980 after fleeing the genocide led by the Khmer Rouge regime. He studied at IDHEC. In 2003, S21, The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, a widely awarded documentary, reviews the policy of systematic elimination orchestrated by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. In 2006, he co-founded the Bophana center in Cambodia, allowing archiving Cambodian audiovisual heritage and training in its professions. In 2013, his film The Missing Picture was the first Cambodian film nominated for an Oscar, for best foreign language film. His latest film Irradiated, in competition at the Berlinale 2020, received the award for best documentary. Rithy Panh has coauthored several books including “The Elimination” and “Peace with the Dead” with Christophe Bataille published by Grasset.

Leonor Reyes was once a major player in the Filipino film industry after creating a string of successful action films, but now her household struggles to pay the bills. When she reads an advertisement looking for screenplays, Leonor begins tinkering with an unfinished script about the quest of young, noble Ronwaldo, forced to avenge his brother’s murder at the hand of thugs. While her imagination provides some escape from reality, she goes all-in after an accident involving a television knocks her out, sends her into a coma, and transports her inside the incomplete movie. Now Leonor can play out her wildest dreams firsthand and discover the perfect ending to her story.

I was born and raised in Manila, a chaotic but charming city full of character and mystery. Not so long ago, a famous action star with no background in law and governance became the 13th President of the Philippines. I was six years old then and as a young girl, it felt natural for somebody famous to get elected. Today, decades later, after having two more “action star” presidents, I find myself questioning this absurd reality and am surprised by how easy it can be understood once I place it in parallel with our love for movies. The epiphany is that we love fiction that it can blur our realities. I would  spend days watching movies because it can take me to places that will never exist in my waking reality. This film therefore, which is about a writer-director who gets transported into a film she had written, is a concretization of cinema’s effect and our romantic notions of life that can only exist in fiction. Thus, if I had to make one film before jumping off a cliff, I would want it to be about my relationship with cinema — how it takes me places and keeps me sane.

Hung is an 8-year-old boy, who is still coping with the death of his mother. Having difficulty connecting to his father, he feels more alone when his best friend moves away to the big city, as more neighbors leave, wooed financially by a greedy landlord with the intent to sell the property to a land developer. Whenever he feels distraught, Hung retreats to the roof to be alone and watch the night sky. One night, he witnesses a meteor shower with an errant falling star hitting the ground in the distance. Hung hops on his bike in search of adventure, to find the meteor. He arrives at the crash site, and instead discovers an alien girl from the planet Maika, who came in search of her lost friend. As Hung helps Maika find her friend and get back to her home, she inadvertently helps Hung make new friends and mend his broken heart. But, danger
lurks everywhere, as Hung is not the only one who knows of his new alien friend…

Hàm Trần received his MFA in Directing from the UCLA School of Film and Television. His first two short films The Prescription and Pomegranate were finalists for the Student Academy Awards®, and his thesis film The Anniversary was Short-listed for the 2004 Academy Awards® for Best Live Action Short. In addition to fixing many of Vietnam’s biggest box office hits, Tran has successfully written, directed and edited 6 of his own feature
films. His first feature, Journey from the Fall, premiered at the prestigious 2006 Sundance Film Festival and in 2019 was listed by the LA Times as one of the 20 Asian American cannon films in the last 20 years. In 2022, Tran returned to Sundance with a family sci-fi film, Maika.  Tran has also recently completed a short film called Powder, which is part of a horror shorts anthology that he has developed called Zero Hour. His other upcoming projects include a horror 2feature based on the retelling of the Vietnamese Cinderella story called, The Othered, and a thriller called The Message. He continues to direct commercials and branded short films in between his feature work. Tran also produces and develops projects as a co-founder of East Films –– a creative studio focused on pan-Asian stories for a global audience. When he’s not working, Tran enjoys karaoke and is known as HamPod for his musical knowledge!

VÂN is bedridden. Wandering between reality, memories and dreams, she is trying to record a farewell message for her daughters. She also has a final wish to donate her organs by deceased, but faces struggles from her husband HOÀNG and her father.  

Marcus Manh Cuong VU got his university degree education in Berlin (Germany) and Paris (France). He began as a film reporter from major international film festivals for Vietnamese media. From 2010 to 2014 he served as festival director of Yxine Film Fest (YxineFF) – an international short film festival pioneering in a hybrid form. From 2015 on he has been taking part actively in the Vietnamese film industry in different roles: writer, producer, director. As a programmer he has curated short films for S-Express, SEAShorts, Asian Film Symposium for many years. MEMENTO MORI: EARTH (2022) is his debut feature film and will world premiere in New Currents of Busan International Film Festival in October 2022. Marcus is currently working on his second feature MEMENTO MORI: WATER which was selected for Asian Project Market of BIFF 2021.

The 1960s in Indonesia were a period of dramatic political change and turmoil, with Suharto’s coup ousting Sukarno and leading to a violent anti-communist purge. Nana, a gentle, beautiful young woman, has been badly affected by the conflict. Her husband was kidnapped and taken into the forest. Although she managed to escape from the gang leader who wanted to force her to marry him, the incident cost her father his life and drove her into poverty. Several years later, she is living comfortably as the second wife of a rich Sundanese man, with a maid to help her adjust to her new environment. But Nana’s past re-emerges in her dreams.

Kamila Andini

Born in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1986, Kamila Andini studied sociology and media arts at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Her films focus on sociocultural topics, gender equality and environmental issues. Her directing debut The Mirror Never Lies, about the lives of Indonesian sea nomads, screened in the 2012 Berlinale Generation. Her second feature film The Seen and Unseen won the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury in 2018 while her third, the teen drama Yuni, won the Platform Prize at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.

Notable Achievement: Best Supporting Actress for Laura Basuki at Berlin Film Festival 2022

Huda, a fish thief in fish auction, decided to leave his home since his mother passed away in addition to abusive behavior of his alcoholic father. Harsh life in the auction site made Huda want to achieve his dream to catch the golden fish in sea. He was led by his dreams. Sri, a fish collector, is close with Huda and consider the ‘golden fish’ as a myth. However, Huda is becoming more confident that if he were to catch the golden fish, his life would be happier. Huda tries all things possible. Unfortunately, all the adults around him, including his own father, don’t care with his wish. Huda is really frustated. In the end, Huda must choose, whether to survive in the fish auction site with little hope or go to find the golden fish in desperation. 

Khusnul khitam was born in 1982. His interest in cinema started When he was a child, he often watched movies with his father. He made his first short film at the age of 20, borrowing an old camera from a friend when he was in college. Debt, Ramadhan Charity Box, Mouse are some of the short films he wrote and directed. His first feature-length documentary, Pulejajar, was presented at the documentary film festival-FFD and the WaterDocs International film festival. Alang-alang (Sound From the Sea) is his first feature-length film which was shot in his hometown on the north coast of Java Island using non-professional actors as the main characters.

Zahara, a stateless refugee, lives on a small remote island in Malaysia, where she makes a living selling turtle eggs. One day, Samad, claiming to be a university researcher, visits the island, wanting to employ Zahara to show him around. As the day goes on, Zahara and Samad become entangled in a dangerous dance of duplicity and deception. Mixing social drama with genre tropes of action, horror, and animation, Stone Turtle takes us on an emotional journey to the unexpected.

Woo Ming Jin

One of the leading voices of the Malaysian New Wave, director Woo Ming Jin’s is the first Malaysian director in history to represent the country in the ‘Big Three’ International Film Festivals: Cannes, Berlin

and Venice Film Festival. Woo’s first film ‘Monday Morning Glory’ (2005) having been selected to Berlin. His second ‘Elephant and the Sea’ (2007) won awards in Torino and Spain. His third film ‘Woman on Fire Looks for Water’ (2009) is only the second Malaysian feature film ever selected for Venice Orrizonti section, while Tiger Factory (2010) was only the third Malaysian film officially selected for Cannes.

In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, religious fanatics, desperados, criminals and fleeing animals are
loose in the city. Miguel, a desperate son but caged all his life by his inner demons, roams the ruins in
search of the two women in his life: his friend Andrea and his mother, Norma. As soon as he finds these
tw , Miguel tries to convince them to leave the unliveable city. As Miguel’s time slowly runs out as
another rumor of an incoming storm resurfaces, He must decide whether to stay on to persuade his
loved ones or to leave town on his own before the next disastrous storm devours him and the only
home he knows.

Carlo Francisco Manatad is a Filipino film director and editor based in Manila. He is a graduate of the University of the Philippines Film Institute. His short films have screened at numerous local and international film festivals Junilyn Has, his first short film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival under the Pardi di Domani Section. Jodilerks Dela Cruz, Employee of the Month, his 4th short film was selected in competition at the 56th Semaine de la Critique of the Cannes International Film Festival. Baga’t Diri Tuhay Tat Pamahungpahung (The Imminent Immanent) premiered in competition at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. As one of the most prolific editors in the Philippines today, he has collaborated with numerous filmmakers on independent and studio films. Carlo is an alumnus of the Asian Film Academy, Berlinale Talents, Tokyo Talents and the Locarno Filmmakers Academy. Whether the Weather is Fine (Kun Maupay Man It Panahon) is his first feature film.