Di is a 12-year-old girl living in a village lost in the mist of Northwest Vietnamese mountains. She belongs to the Hmong ethnic minority where women get married very young, enduring the controversial tradition of “bride-kidnapping”.

When Di enters puberty, her personality has changed drastically. The carefree little girl has turned into an impetuous, hypersensitive teenager constantly arguing with her mother who is trying to keep her away from reckless relationships that she is not mature enough to handle.

On the Lunar New Year’s Eve, when Di’s parents come back home after celebrating, the house is silent: Di has disappeared.

HÀ Lệ Diễm was born in 1991 in Tay ethnic minority group living in the mountains of Northeast Vietnam. She left her hometown to study journalism at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Hanoi, from where she graduated in 2013. “Children of the Mist” is her first feature documentary film project. She is a “Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee.”

Barasak Island is the last remaining forest plot in Pilang Village, Central Kalimantan that survived perennial fires and deforestation. 77 years old Iber Djamal a member of an indigenous community in Central Kalimantan, does his best to protect the forest by trying to get a valid certification from the government for the rest of the forest in his tribal territory. Despite the lack of support from his own family and fellow villagers, he still tries to collect all the documents needed to issue the said certificate. But in the midst of his struggle, Iber’s private land was seized by someone else. He has to choose between managing the forests of Barasak Island or the land dispute. Meanwhile, a large scale forest fires still occur every year causing tremendous environmental disasters. In the midst of these situations, Iber sometimes wants to give up but he has high hopes for his grandson Demetri, who begins to ask a lot of questions about the forest. Iber hopes that the next generation will care to protect the forest.

Arfan Sabran is an Indonesian documentary filmmaker. His directorial debut, ‘Suster Apung’ won “Best Film” and “Film with Best Cinematography” at Eagle Awards 2006. Arfan’s films are known to have strong visual aesthetics with unique and colorful characters. Arfan’s feature-length documentary debut, “The Flame” (Bara), premiered in the prestigious film Visions du Réel 2021 Film Festival in Switzerland, DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea, and the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF). Arfan’s last documentary film production ‘Rabiah and Mimi’, won the pitching forum at Tokyo Docs Film Festival in 2019 and managed to get an international co-production with TBS Sparkle Tokyo premiered on NHK Japan.

Hla and Nyo Nyo live in a country torn by conflict. Hla is a Buddhist and the owner of a makeshift medical clinic in western Myanmar, where the Rohingya (a Muslim minority community) are persecuted and denied basic rights. Nyo Nyo is a Muslim and an apprentice midwife who acts as an assistant and translator at the clinic. Her family has lived in the area for generations, yet they are still considered intruders. Encouraged and challenged by Hla, who risks her own safety daily by helping Muslim patients, Nyo Nyo is determined to become a steady health care provider for her community. 

Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing’s remarkable feature debut was filmed over five turbulent years in a country that has long been exoticized and misunderstood. The filmmaker’s gentle, impartial gaze grants unique access to these courageous women who unite to bring forth life. Filled with love, empathy, and hope, Midwives offers a rare insight into the complex reality of Myanmar and its people. 

Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing

Snow has worked as a freelance filmmaker in Myanmar since 2006, acting as director, producer, editor and sound recordist after attending film Schools in both Myanmar and Germany. Her short, BURMESE BUTTERFLY played festivals in over 20 countries, and PERIOD@PERIOD won for best short at the Wathan Film Festival. MIDWIVES is her feature documentary debut.

After Siam and Lido, the first two standalone cinemas in Siam Square, disappeared in flames long ago. Scala cinema become the last stand-alone cinema in Bangkok that was still open until defeated by Covid 19 in 2020. Not long after its last film screening, Scala declares that it will be dismantled. A filmmaker who’s also the daughter of one of its former employees, started to explore the Scala and unexpectedly face her long lost childhood memories when she met her father’s old friend gathered for the final job which is dismantling their workplace.

Born on October 30th, 1982, in Bangkok, Thailand, grew up in the Siam cinema where her father worked. The military crackdown on the Red Shirts protests in 2010 inspired Ananta and Abhichon Rattanabhayon to start making their first short documentary together that year. Since then, Ananta has worked with Abhichon as assistant director and cinematographer. Scala is her first feature film.

Everybody feels ashamed about something they did at some time. But what do you do if the thing you’re ashamed of is being you? A transgender woman director confronts stigma the way a filmmaker knows how: by turning the camera on herself.

Quen Wong is a Singaporean filmmaker. In 2018, she directed ‘Building Bridges’, one of five short
films created for Singapore’s Pink Dot protest against Section 377A, the law criminalising sex
between consenting males.

Quen’s body of work also includes ‘Power and Piety: The Hellfire Nation’ (2018), an essay film
about the influence of Christian evangelicalism on American politics. Hosted by BAFTA-
winner Mobeen Azhar, the film was syndicated on National Geographic Australia and BBC
Arabic. Quen also directed ‘Undercover Asia: Director’s Biography

Treatment or Torture’ (2014), an investigation of human rights abuses allegedly taking place in
drug rehabilitation centres in Cambodia. It was syndicated on AETN Asia.

Previously, Quen was an award-winning trailer producer and content creator with National
Geographic Channel Asia. She clinched Promax/ BDA (Asia) Gold Awards for Best Interstitial: Nat
Geo’s Top 30 Winner (2009) and Best Script: Preserve our Planet (2008), among others.

‘Some Women’ is Quen’s first feature film. It was a recipient of the Tan Ean Kiam Foundation
– SGIFF Southeast Asian Documentary Grant (SEADOC) in 2019 and the IDFA (International
Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) Project Award at Docs by the Sea in 2020.