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.
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 - Portugal)
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, Taiwan, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Indonesia
Produced by Foo Fei Ling (Ghost Grrrl Pictures - Malaysia), Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Patrick Huang (Flash Forward Entertainment - Taiwan), Juliette Lepoutre (Still Moving - France), Jonas Weydemann (Weydemann Bros - Germany), Ellen Havenith (PRPL - The Netherlands), Yulia Evina Bhara (KawanKawan Media - Indonesia)
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.
Oasis of Now
by Chia Chee SumMalaysia, Singapore, France
Produced by Lee Yve Vonn (Afternoon Pictures - Malaysia), Fran Borgia (Akanga Film Asia), Xavier Rocher (La Fabrica Nocturna - France), theCommonist (Malaysia)
After secretly meeting her daughter who lives with the local adoptive parents, Hanh (30s), an undocumented Vietnamese continues her door-to-door housekeeping in an apartment area in Kuala Lumpur, where the decades old buildings are home to both locals and foreign. Hanh has lived in Malaysia for many years, with her ability to speak multiple local languages, she is able to make ends meet working for the diverse local ethnic groups. During an immigration raid, she escapes to an elderly Malay stranger’s apartment. While waiting for the raid to end, the stranger mistakes Hanh as if she was his daughter who left home. Hanh plays along like she is in a home she longs for, as if they are a family. However, such impressions only last until her return to the apartments after the raid, she realises the people and places she once felt like family and home, have always been seeing her differently. Needing to belong somewhere, Hanh decides to leave with her increasingly stranger daughter.
Winner of the SEAFIC Award 2020/21, Locarno Open Doors 2020 - Prix Arte Kino International, and the Talents Tokyo 2020 Award.