Southeast Asian cinema exploring different folklores and myths get the spotlight at the 7th Tingin Southeast Asian Film Festival happening on August 17-18, 2024 at the Red Carpet Cinema in Shangri-La Plaza Mall.
With this year's theme of Enchantments for a Fragile World, a curated lineup of six full length films and four short films from the SEA region will be screened, for free, at the Red Carpet Cinema.
The film festival, the only one in the country showcasing movies from the Southeast Asian region, is part of the celebration for ASEAN month.
The full-length film selection for the 7th Tingin Southeast Asian Film Festival are as follows:
Dreaming & Dying (Singapore)
Director: Nelson Yeo
Three middle-aged friends are forced to confront their inner demons as a long-buried love triangle between them resurfaces.
Golden Dragon (Cambodia)
Director: Boren Chhith
In a coastal city, a hospital patient investigates the connections between his father's death and his dreams which overcome him.
In My Mother's Skin (Philippines)
Director: Kenneth Dagatan
A young girl desperate to cure her dying mother seeks out a mysterious fairy who gives her a magical insect. Unbeknownst to her, the fairy turns out to be deceitful and plans to devour them all.
The Long Walk (Laos)
Director: Mattie Do
An old scavenger living on the fringes of a near-future society exploits a ghostly companion's ability to traverse time, hoping to prevent his mother's suffering from a terminal illness.
Memoryland (Vietnam)
Director: Kim Quy Bui
A fatal workplace accident, a lonely young widow in a village filled with ghosts, and a couple planning for death; three stories of loss slowly intersect in this eloquent hybrid film.
Of Other Tomorrows Never Known (Indonesia)
Director: Natasha Tontey
Guided by the Minahasa’s influence, this speculative fiction of mystical belief interlaces care and ancestral dialogues, embracing a healing renewal across numinous, material and technological realms.
Once Upon a Time There was a Mom (Myanmar)
Director: Lin Htet Aung
Echoing the story of Vessantara Jātaka, the film depicts a man’s post-widowhood transformation and Myanmar's complex past through a dysfunctional family.
Part of Me (Brunei)
Director: Hazrul Aizan
Haz, an aspiring singer, is conflicted between chasing his dreams and following his family’s expectations. He struggles to see which is right for his path, and finds himself stuck between listening to his confidante, Atiyyah, who believes his happiness is the key to life or his brother, Halim, who believes guaranteed success is the key to life.
Snow in Midsummer (Malaysia)
Director: Chong Keat Aun
For 49 years, Ah Eng and Dou E were trapped in the "513" timeline. In 1969, post-election tensions gripped Kuala Lumpur when the Cantonese street opera "Snow in June" showcased Dou E, portrayed by the troupe master. Amid a riot, Ah Eng and her mother sought refuge with the troupe, losing contact with her brother and father. In 2018, Ah Eng returned to Kuala Lumpur and unexpectedly encountered "Dou E" at the cemetery.
Worship (Thailand)
Director: Uruphong Raksasad
Crisscrossing geographical and spiritual latitudes of Thailand, WORSHIP is a rapt sensory immersion into the ritualized power of faith and how it shapes the courses of people’s lives. From North to South and East to West, the documentary wraps us in the cloud of incense smoke as it explores Buddhist rites, animist rituals, shamanistic divinations, processions of flagellants, and guru monks’ vibrant and eccentric blessing ceremonies, and along the way investigates the fine line that separates devotion from superstition and transcendence from decadence. Farmers, villagers, monks, mediums, temple hustlers and devotees of all stripes make up this honest anthropological portrait of Thailand’s at its most faithful and hallucinatory.
Attendees for the opening night on August 17, 2024, 6:00 PM are encouraged to dress according to the theme with the best one winning a cash prize. Free movie snacks also await early birds in select screenings.
Scheduled after the screening of the closing film In My Mother's Skin is a talk-back session with the cast and crew led by director Kenneth Dagatan and producers Bianca Balbuena & Bradley Liew.
Here is the schedule for the festival.
August 17, 2024
12:00 PM Golden Dragon
12:50 PM Once Upon a Time There was a Mom
1:50 PM Worship
3:50 PM Snow in Midsummer
7:00 PM The Long Walk
August 18, 2024
12:00 PM Part of Me
1:10 PM Of Other Tomorrows Never Known
2:55 PM Memoryland
5:25 PM Dreaming & Dying
7:00 PM In My Mother's Skin
The 7th Tingin Southeast Asian Film Festival is presented by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Shangri-La Plaza's Red Carpet.
