As 2024 comes to an end, this issue of the Asian Cinema Digest highlights available screenings for the holiday season, as well as best-of lists, opinion pieces and reflective interviews to sum up our cinema journey this year.
TO SEE
Image still from Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)Asian Film Archive: Edward Yang’s Four Favourite Films
Following up from a full retrospective of Edward Yang’s iconic oeuvre, the Asian Film Archive (AFA) presents 4 of the auteur’s favourite classic films: Nostalghia (1983) by Andrei Tarkovsky), My American Uncle (1980) by Alain Resnais, Blue Velvet (1986) by David Lynch and Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) by Werner Herzog, each having influenced Yang’s attitudes and approaches to his own practice.
The accompanying exhibition titled Retrospective: Edward Yang will also remain up at the atrium right outside the Oldham Theatre until 29 December 2024, allowing audiences a look at original props, artefacts, rare behind the scenes footage and more.
Poster for The Carrot Cake Conversations (2010) by Charmaine Teo, Michael WangAsian Film Archive: 5 Christmas themed Singaporean films from the collection
The Asian Film Archive (AFA) holds and preserves a crucial repository of Singaporean and Southeast Asian films, some of which are available for viewing in the National Library of Singapore. Here are 5 Singaporean films set during or around the festive period that can be found on the shelf at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library.
A Christmas Wish (2008) by Winston Chee
Notes written by an unseen hand magically manifest to help bridge the communication gap between a young girl and her busy parents so that her wish for both of them to spend Christmas with her this year is fulfilled.
All I Want for Christmas (2006) by Chang Yee Yeo
A woman has a film production career so demanding that she is left with little time for her novelist partner, even on holidays and special occasions. He tries to be patient and she in turn tries her utmost to cope with work and the marriage, but they soon meet with disappointments that could just scar their relationship irrevocably.
All My Presents (2002) by Wee Li Lin
Sue holds a Christmas party and excitedly prepares specially bought presents for all her guests. The lack of appreciation from some of her guests though, leads to much disappointment.
The Christmas Boy (2009) by Henry Wong
A young boy tries to befriend his elderly and unhappy neighbour. With the help of his friends, the boy brings love and warmth into the old man’s life by reconciling him with his son and inviting him to a Christmas party.
The Carrot Cake Conversations (2010) by Charmaine Teo, Michael Wang
Four strangers find themselves stranded in Singapore two days before Christmas. This is a story of how they find companionship over a plate of carrot cake and a conversation.
Image still from Himala (1982, Ishmael Bernal)
Image still from Isang Himala (2024, Pepe Diokno)50th Metro Manila Film Festival
From 25 December 2024 to 7 January 2025, the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival presents 10 Filipino features and student short films in competition, vibrant works of varying genres and styles. Audiences can look forward to Pepe Diokno’s Isang Himala (2024), a screen adaptation of the stage musical based on Ishmael Bernal’s Himala (1982). The cautionary tale, which had also premiered in 1982 at the same festival to wide acclaim, tells the spiralling tale of Elsa, a young provincial girl who claims to have been visited by the Virgin Mary and begins exhibiting miracles.A restored Himala was previously screened at the Asian Film Archive as part of the special programme DIVINE, exploring filmic connections between femininity and the gendered notion of venerated goddesshood.
Image still from Sight Leak (2022, Peng Zuqiang)e-flux: Queer Strategies and Tentacles
Films and videos unpacking and subverting the intertwined concerns of queer liberation, survival, gentrification and resistance are streaming on e-flux’s screening room for free until March 2025. Curated by Rosa Barotsi and Zairong Xiang, Queer Strategies and Tentacles runs in 8 themed chapters, each running for 2 weeks. The current lineup, a double bill of 2 Chinese short films pondering a homoerotic gaze, features Shen Xin’s The Gray Critic (2015) and Peng Zuqiang’s Sight Leak (2022).
TO READ
MUBI Notebook: The Best Movie Posters of 2024
MUBI’s resident movie poster columnist Adrian Curry rounds up his top 10 movie posters of 2024, with A Traveller’s Needs (2024) coming out on top. Curry praises designer Brian Hung’s playful details that reflect the wry character of the film and its protagonist, played by Isabelle Huppert: the lush green of the neighbourhood park, twinkling lights in the far corner (which is actually the billing block), stone inscriptions of the film’s synopsis, a bottle of the character’s beloved makgeolli nestled in the grass. He also notes the poster’s resemblance to The Park, a 1910 painting by Gustav Klimt, in which green fern-like textures similarly take over most of the composition.
A Traveller’s Needs was previously screened at the Asian Film Archive as part of the special programme Rest & Relax, surrounding the contradictory bind of films exuding aesthetics of leisure and escapism while depicting underlying anxieties of our daily life.
The list also mentions Between Goodbyes (2024) by Jota Mun, sensitively composed with a torn silhouette from a photograph to underscore the film’s narrative of a Korean adoptee reconnecting with her birth family, and April (2024) by Déa Kulumbegashvili, a collage of overlaid textures: a wrinkled hospital sheet over backdrop of clouded blue skies, masking a large smear of blood. The film follows an ob-gyn moonlighting as an abortionist in rural Georgia.
Image still from Me, Raani (2024, Shivani Mehra)Deadline: Navigating The Oscar Race: South Asian Cinema’s Quiet Surge As Shortlist Voting Begins
The end of the year also heralds the arrival of Oscar predictions, speculations and ‘For Your Consideration’ campaigns. Sunil Sadarangani highlights the surge of South Asian films that may contend for nominations besides India’s official entry, Lost Ladies (2023) by Kiran Rao: short films Anuja (2024) by Adam J. Graves and Me, Raani (2024) by Shivani Mehra, and features All We Imagine As Light (2024) by Payal Kapadia and The Glassworker (2024) by Usman Riaz. She comments positively on the critical and media attention these titles have gotten across the year, some bolstered by international film festivals, others by streaming platforms that have given the films an instant, wider reach.
IFFR Blog: Work with people you like: Aiko Masubuchi on Happyend
Fresh out of its world premiere at Venice’s Orizzonti section, Neo Sora’s fiction feature debut Happyend (2024) on surveillance and authoritarianism has travelled to many other prestigious festivals in Toronto, Busan, Singapore, with more premieres to come. Programmer, translator and producer Aiko Masubuchi reflects on her 7 year journey with Sora to make the film, the struggle of navigating fund applications, searching for affinities to build a team and finding her own way. She credits the Rotterdam Lab and the producers she met there in giving her the advice to “work with people you like”.
Image still from Vox Humana (2024, Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan)Rappler: ‘Vox Humana’: Director Don Eblahan brings the Cordilleras to Toronto film fest
Lé Baltar chats with filmmaker and musician Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan about his newest hybrid sci-fi/western short film Vox Humana (2024), about a transcendent encounter between a zoologist and a feral man she has been hired to attempt communication with. Don Eblahan’s narratives surround the cerebral, emotional and physical plights of indigenous people existing in post-colonial spaces and lands. In line with drawing out connections to the landscape, its textures and sounds, Vox Humana’s visuals are ruled by the majestic cordilleras and its natural light, while sound design was meticulously developed, namely through a fictional language of sounds and symbols used in the film. Don Eblahan is also developing a “feature film cousin” to Vox Humana, titled Hum, which tells a different story but retains similar genre experimentations.
TO SUBMIT
Call for Submissions: 49th Hong Kong International Film Festival
The Hong Kong International Film Festival is accepting submissions of features, shorts and documentaries that have not premiered in Hong Kong. The rules and regulations can be found here, and the deadline for submissions is 31 December 2024.
Call for Submissions: 3rd Mint Chinese Film Festival
Based in Keswick, UK, the Mint Chinese Film Festival programmes feature and short film competitions for films revolving around Chinese stories, communities, diaspora and cultural memories. They are accepting submissions of features above 60 minutes and shorts under 30 minutes produced between 2023 and 2024. The rules and regulations can be found here, and the deadline for submissions is 30 January 2025.
Call for Submissions: 18th Asian Film Awards
The annual Asian Film Awards is accepting submissions of Asian features above 60 minutes that have been screened theatrically or distributed in Asia in 2024, or received national awards/international premieres. The rules and regulations can be found here, and the deadline for submissions is 31 December 2024.
Call for Submissions: JEONJU Cinema Project – Next Edition (Film Fund)
The JEONJU Cinema Project aims to discover and support independent productions, and is accepting both Korean and international project submissions. Selected project(s) will receive up to 50,000,000 KRW of funding. The rules and regulations can be found here, and the deadline for submissions is 20 December 2024.
Call for Participation: IMDA Short-Form Content Grant
The Short-Form Content Grant is open for short films below 40 minutes by a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident director or producer. The project must not be a commissioned or school project. The rules and regulations can be found here, and the deadline for submissions is 7 January 2025.
This edition of the Asian Cinema Digest was compiled by Renee Ng. The Asian Cinema Digest is a monthly compilation of content taking place internationally involving Asian cinema and the moving image. Featured programmes are not representative of AFA’s views and are unaffiliated to the AFA unless otherwise stated.
