City of Small Blessings
by Wong Chen-HsiSingapore
Produced by Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Gary Goh (mm2 Entertainment), Teh Su Ching (Purple Tree Content)
A new train line is being built in the ultra-modern glass and metal city of Singapore, and it will cut through a quiet residential enclave. Prakash, a retired civil servant, hides from his wife the knowledge that they will soon be evicted from their home. When he discovers a small oversight in state planning, he begins a desperate appeal to government officials to reroute the line and save his home. Yet, as construction advances, his wife and estranged son will not support his fight. Tension fractures the family, Prakashʼs isolation grows, and he questions the city he had dedicated his life to, even as it threatens to engulf him.
Based on the novel of the same name by Simon Tay winner of the Singapore Literature Prize in 2010.
Yuni
by Kamila AndiniIndonesia, Singapore, France
Produced by Ifa Isfansyah (Fourcolours Films - Indonesia), Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Birgit Kemner (Manny Films - France)
Yuni is a smart teenage girl with big dreams. She wants to attend university. She thinks everything is possible, then one day she got proposed by a man she barely knows. She rejected the proposal, and then she became the talk of her society. The second proposal came, Yuni still believes in her dream, so does the family. But something came up this time. A myth, that a woman should not reject more than two proposals; otherwise, she will never get married. Facing all this pressure, there are two things that Yuni runs into: a relationship with Yoga, a shy younger boy in her school, and poetry from literature class thought by her favorite teacher, Pak Damar. With poetry, Yuni feels she can disappear and hide for a minute from her world. Until Pak Damar, came to her house, become the third guy who proposed to her. Yuni still has two options in her hand; to run away with Yoga or get married to Pak Damar. Both of the options sound like a good deal. But does marriage always have to be a ‘deal’?
World Sales: Cercamon
Tomorrow is a Long Time
by Jow Zhi WeiSingapore, Taiwan, France, Portugal
Produced by Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Jeremy Chua (Potocol - Singapore), Stefano Centini (Volos Films - Taiwan), Xavier Rocher (La Fabrica Nocturna - France), Ico Costa (Oublaum Filmes)
Chua, a middle-aged widower does not seem to have much of a connection with anyone, except for his teenage son, Meng, to whom he returns home every morning after his night shift at the shipyard. The long hours meld into an endless draining cycle of labour and overwork, just to survive. Chua hides his increasing vulnerabilities beneath his powerful appearance, while Meng, a deeply sensitive boy, and unable to measure up to his father, acutely feels their difference in stature. In the dense, confined spaces of contemporary Singapore, this relationship between father and son - created by a sense of dependency and tension from the outside world - becomes slowly unbearable... Chua, in a bid to free themselves from this vicious cycle, performs a 'mercy release', freeing a captive animal into the wild. Believing this ritual will create good karma for the person and their child, in this life and the next, Chua lays down an unexpected path for his son.
Tiger Stripes
by Amanda Nell EuMalaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Germany, France
Produced by Foo Fei Ling (Ghost Grrrl Pictures - Malaysia), Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Yulia Evina Bhara (KawanKawan Media - Indonesia), Jonas Weydemann (Weydemann Bros - Germany), Juliette Lepoutre (Still Moving - France)
An 11-year-old girl reaches puberty when her body begins to morph at an alarming and horrifying rate. In fear of being labeled as a demon, she struggles to maintain being normal at school by trying to conceal her grotesque self... that is until she decides that she no longer wants to hide from the world.
Skin of Youth
by Ash MayfairVietnam, Singapore
Produced by Tran Thi Bich Ngoc (An Nam Productions - Vietnam), Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Mayfair Pictures
1990s Saigon, San wants to have enough money for a sex-change operation that will fulfil her dream of living in a woman’s body. San’s lover, Nam, must work as an underground dog-cage fighter to support this dream. The young lovers are unaware that the dark forces they will have to battle may cost them their relationship and test the limit of their humanity.
Winner of the Sorfond Award - Busan APM 2019, SEAFIC Open SEA Fund Award Co-winner 2019, Talents Tokyo Special Mention Award 2019.
