Also Directed by Raya Martin
A famous American filmmaker travels to the Yucatán to scout locations for his last movie. The Mayan Apocalypse intercedes
Short film by Raya Martin, published as part of After Cinema Words, a project considering the work of director Carlos Reygadas, here responding to a still image from the 2005 film Battle In Heaven.
Raya Martin loves old silent films and knows better than anyone how to use old moods and techniques in his own films. You could say that he loves experimental films and that he manages to revitalise the old techniques. Here he looks at boxers, even though we hardly see them.
Rita is named after a famous American movie star whom her late, former actress grandmother once adored. She lives in one of Manila’s oldest districts with her busy mother and entrepreneurial aunt. Years later, she is still the same girl enamoured with television, now also tending to her aunt’s stall selling pirated DVD movies. Elsewhere, there survives footages of a movie done before the war.
Purports to document the production of a short about a young man’s first sexual experience while doubling as a coming-out film and a multiply layered making-of movie.
Impressionistic images from a train ride.
A man travelling on the sea.
A tribute to filmmakers and National Artists Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal. In the "Day" segment, Piolo Pacual portrays the role of William, a drug addict who tries to rebuild his sense of self and reconnect with the people around him. For the "Night" segment, Pascual portrays the role of Philip, who works as a bodyguard for a mayor's son. The bodyguard believes that his boss considers him as part of the family but after a shooting incident, he realizes his real worth to his boss. As he struggles to hide, he is slowly consumed by the claws of darkness lurking the city.
In another lifetime, a Spanish couple takes drugs and teleports through their television set. A troubled young man travels through the countryside and meets a lost woman. During the trip, they discover a museum housing the expatriated paintings of the most important Filipino artist of the revolution. Eventually, the Spanish couple disappears toward their colony. Inspired by one of the earliest teleportation accounts, which happened between the Philippines and Mexico during the colonial period.
A group of friends, sharing a passion for cinema, assemble in Corregidor, a small island in Manila Bay that has preserved relics from the Pacific War as its foremost attractions. There, they explore the island and retire in a rustic mansion used once to make silent films. Outside the city, the woods and sea become a meeting place for more movie personalities and it all becomes a celebration of what was left behind.
Also Directed by Vimukthi Jayasundara
A home-guard serviceman assigned the task of standing watch over a barren no-man's-land begins to experience an existential crisis after years of lonely service.
A Buddhist monk on a spiritual quest. A Student trying to test his limits. An organ dealer growing his business. A surgeon who heals by day and rapes women at night.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
In a forest, near a border, a young Bengali and a European soldier attempt to get the better of one another. In Calcutta, Rahul, an architect who had gone off to build a career in Dubai, begins a huge construction site. He is reunited with his girlfriend, Paoli, who has long awaited his homecoming, living alone far from her family. Both set out to find Rahul's brother, who is said to have gone mad and who lives in the forest and sleeps in the trees.
The young man fell from the sky. Communication relay burns. Flee from the city and its commotion, return to nature. Become part of another story. That of the legend of the prince. In the hope of a love, hiding behind the hollow in a tree. Nothing magic is improbable. What happened yesterday, may happen again tomorrow.
Three Sri Lankan filmmakers renowned for their internationally acclaimed films based on the Sri Lankan civil war, join in to make one film to express their views on post-war reality.
In one of the most beautiful places on the planet, a father wants his young son to witness his last breath to arrive at a deeper understanding of life.
Also Directed by Ying Liang
Hong Kong, at the height of the protests. A young woman visits her father, whom she has not seen for a while. Her plan is to have lunch with him before the Umbrella Movement reaches a critical juncture. Celebrated, committed filmmaker Ying Liang contributed with a beautiful moving short with an special angle asking: Where do we live, and what is citizenship?
A mainland Chinese filmmaker, exiled to Hong Kong for her politically-charged work, reunites with her mother on a trip to Taiwan.
A 17 year old boy from a village in the Sechuan province leaves for the big city looking for his father, who left 6 years before and has not been heard of since. The fact that his mother still receives money his father does nothing to tame his anger. He his not looking for a warm reunion, it is unconcealed revenge that drives him. Totally lost, he roams the big city with his basket of ducks on his back...
The mother of a murderer awaits and prepares to meet her son. The true story of a man who killed six Shanghai policemen after suffering police beatings as a punishment for riding an unlicensed bicycle. This film was produced as a part of the Jeonju Digital Project.
During Chinese New Year, juvenile delinquent Chen Jun, was approved to go home for one day. He returned to the city and found that the new house his father had left for him had been turned into a big hotel, which meant he had no home to return to!
Burial Rites become the mise-en scene in which politicians, the media, a monk and an infuriated neighbour vividly portray the aftermath of an accident.
The Chinese police visit head-teacher Chen at home. Her daughter, a dissident filmmaker living in Hong Kong, plans yet another critical film about China's colonization of the small autonomous territory. The authorities demand that Chen travel to her daughter to stop the film project. What they do not take into account is that Chen and her daughter lost contact long ago.
Working as a secretary for a legal office, Xiaofen records clients detailing the sordid aspects of their lives: divorce cases, medical malpractice suits, financial corruption and old-fashioned personal revenge. Xiaofen starts to question her own relationship with her boyfriend (Deng Gang), fresh out of prison and looking to get into trouble again with his gambling habit. While Xiaofen deals with the overwhelming social malaise surrounding her, rumors spread of a disaster at the local chemical plant, threatening to poison the entire city.
Luo Liang, a young man trying to meet the expectations of family and work, has come to town looking for something better but is unsure of his lot in life.
During the pandemic, the filmmaker’s son found himself stuck at home for a very long time. Ying Liang watched him cut out a portrait of Abbas Kiarostami from a book, and create a face mask on the face of the Iranian filmmaker. Liang observes how his son builds a ‘world’ on his bed, makes a paper airplane, and flies various places with his new friend Abbas Kiarostami. After spending the whole day flying, he falls asleep on that same bed with the family’s kitten. In his dreams, he uses the ‘magic’ he has learned from an online magic course to remove the face mask. With The World of Mindfulness, Chinese filmmaker Liang – who is now living in Hong Kong – creates a marvellously simple piece about the world of childhood, adding a touch of playful cinephilia.
