September 2026
This September, Asian Cinema Digest looks at how cinema responds to the world(s) around us. Slow down with Asian Film Archive’s Past Time, consider images of demolition and destruction at Anthology Film Archives, and revisit Hong Kong’s history through the personal memories of artists in e-flux Film’s A City in Transmission: Five Works from Videotage. On the Criterion Channel, rediscover Shohei Imamura’s raw and sensual vision of postwar Japan through the lives of those living on the margins of society.
Listen to Asian Cinema Film Club discussion on Jeffrey Lau’s delightfully absurd Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993), unpacking its stacked cast and curious connection to Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time (1994).
And read across vastly different perspectives on Asian cinema. Trace the changing language of romance in Pakistani cinema, revisit Hiroshi Teshigahara’s bleak yet empathetic vision of the individual under modern life, and hear Rafael Manuel reflect on cinematic colonialism and his own approach for Filipiñana (2026). Or, for something considerably less serious, dive into the gloriously absurd production of Hong Kong’s The Mighty Peking Man (1977).
To See
Image still from Mundane History (2009, Anocha Suwichakornpong)Asian Film Archive: Past Time
Asian Film Archive’s latest programme, Past Time, brings together films that challenge the perpetual rush of everyday life. Resisting demands for constant productivity and our shrinking collective attention spans, the programme invites audiences to slow down and simply spend time in the present. Featuring seminal works by renowned auteurs, these films traverse memory, time zones, and space to reflect on humanity’s struggle against the tyranny of time.
Running till 27 September, spend a day (or two) at Oldham Theatre with films rarely encountered in conventional cinemas — some demanding considerably more of your time than others. Highlights include Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Mundane History (2009), Pedro Costa’s In Vanda’s Room (2000), and the late Béla Tarr’s monumental Sátántangó (1994). Tickets are selling fast, get your tickets here while you can.
Image still from Still Life (2006, Jia Zhangke)Anthology Film Archives: Rubble On Screen: The Cinema Of Demolition And Destruction
New York’s Anthology Film Archives contemplates the present realities of conflict with Rubble on Screen, a series investigating images of demolition and destruction across cinema. Interested in the moving image’s ability to record destruction as it unfolds, the programme considers how cinema can cut through manufactured narratives to reveal the sociopolitical and human realities behind acts of deconstruction.
Spanning different periods and geographies, the series interrogates the fine line between “demolition” and “destruction”, questioning what these images reveal about the human costs of both. Running till 24 September, featured films include Ou Ning’s Meishi Street (2006), Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (2006) and Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land (2024).
Image still from Voices Seen, Images Heard (2009, Linda Chiu-han Lai)e-flux Film: A City in Transmission: Five Works from Videotage
In this co-presentation with Videotage, e-flux FIlm’s A City in Transmission explores how Hong Kong-based artists Ellen Pau, Lee Kai Chung, Linda Chiu-han Lai, Serene Hui and Yan Wai Yin Winnie respond to the city’s history through the moving image.
From school-day memories and experiences of loss to encounters with a rapidly changing city, the artists turn fragments of their own lives into ways of approaching Hong Kong’s wider history, including significant events such as the Japanese Occupation, the Cold War, and the city’s handover. Moving between recollection, found footage and speculation, the five works blur personal memory and recorded history, questioning how our understanding of the past changes depending on who remembers it.
The films are available to watch online till 30 September.
The Criterion Channel: Directed by Shohei Imamura
One of the key figures of the Japanese New Wave, Shohei Imamura left behind a filmography deeply attuned to a Japan reshaped by war, occupation, and changing social conditions, while remaining fascinated by the primal instincts that drive human behaviour.
Beginning his career as an assistant to Yasujirō Ozu on seminal films including Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953), Imamura went on to develop a radically different style of his own — explosive, raw and sensual. His films turned towards the margins of Japanese society, following criminals, outcasts, and women navigating systems of social and sexual oppression. Imamura remains the only Japanese director to have won the Palme d’Or twice, for The Ballad of Narayama (1983) and The Eel (1997), both of which are available to stream alongside many of his other films on the Criterion Channel.
To Listen
Asian Cinema Film Club #155 – Eagle Shooting Heroes
Hosts Elwood and Stephen of Asian Cinema Film Club revisit Jeffrey Lau’s Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993), one of the more curious productions in Hong Kong cinema history. Featuring an extraordinary ensemble — including Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Jacky Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Joey Wong, Maggie Cheung, and many more — the low-budget mo lei tau comedy was produced by Wong Kar-wai, with action choreography by legendary martial artist Sammo Hung, to capitalise on the Lunar New Year season.
The hosting duo delve into the film’s unusual production history, including its connection to Wong’s troubled and over-budget Ashes of Time (1994). With both films drawing from Jin Yong’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes, they explore how Eagle Shooting Heroes instead embraces absurdist humour, riffing on beloved wuxia tropes from Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest productions.
To Read
MUBI Notebook: Songs for a Kiss: The Evolving Romance of Pakistani Cinema
Tracing changing representation of romance and sexuality in Pakistani Cinema, journalist Manahil Tahira looks at it through three iterations of Aina: Nazrul Islam’s 1977 original, Sangeeta’s loose remake Nikah (1998) and Sarmad Khoosat’s 2013 telefilm adaption.
Taking the conspicuous absence of the onscreen kiss as a starting point, Tahira situates Pakistani cinema’s visual language of desire within the country’s shifting sociopolitical landscape, from colonial-era cultural codes of respectability to President Muhammad Zia-ul Haq’s regime of Islamisation and the later rise of television. Across the three films, the essay examines how romantic duets, marital beds, gestures and other forms of visual grammar reveal changing attitudes towards intimacy and romance in Pakistani society.
Image still from Woman in the Dunes (1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara)Little White Lies: In Praise of Hiroshi Teshigahara: Surveyor of the Abyss
Writer Sam Moore explores Japanese New Wave filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara’s fascination with the fragile sense of self, asking what remains of a person when they are subjected to endless labour, exploitation and alienation.
Looking across Pitfall (1962), Woman in the Dunes (1964), and The Face of Another (1966), the essay delves into how Teshigahara places his characters with environments that threaten to consume them — from seeming endless mines and shifting sand dunes to the anonymity of the modern metropolis. Yet beneath the bleakness of his cinema, Moore finds a flicker of hope, as his characters continue to search for something beyond the conditions that threaten to erase them.
A Rabbit’s Foot: Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana is a cinematic exercise in rebellion
Filmmaker Rafael Manuel speaks about his debut feature Filipiñana (2026), the Philippines’ entry for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards. A slow-burning satire of class and systemic violence set within the manicured confines of a Philippine golf course, the film draws from Hannah Arendt’s ideas on the “banality of evil” to explore inaction and complicity within oppressive systems through its 17-year-old protagonist, Isabel.
The conversation examines Manuel’s resistance to cinematic colonialism, from challenging Western expectations of how the Philippines should appear onscreen to structuring the film around the rhythm of songs rather than conventional acts and scenes. He also reflects on the accessibility of world cinema in the Philippines and his hopes for audiences to champion alternative forms of Filipino filmmaking.
Image still from The Mighty Peking Man (1977, Ho Meng-hua)O.cult Mag: The Mighty Peking Man is HK’s most unhinged monster movie
O.cult Mag revisits Ho Meng-hua’s cult monster movie The Mighty Peking Man (1977), an ambitious Shaw Brothers production conceived in the wake of Hollywood’s 1976 King Kong remake. Made with special-effects experts from Japan’s Toho Studios, the film brought together Hong Kong filmmaking and Japanese kaiju craftsmanship through elaborate miniature, practical effects, and a giant ape suit made with hair from over 300 local donors.
Beyond its delightfully unhinged production, the article looks at how the film inadvertently preserved 1970s Hong Kong in miniature, recreating landmarks and streets across Central for its climactic rampage. Approaching its 50th anniversary, The Mighty Peking Man remains a wonderfully excessive snapshot of an era of tactile, practical filmmaking.
To Submit
Call for Submissions: Harkat 16mm Film Festival
Organised by Mumbai-based alternative arts space and boutique film production company Harkat, the 16mm Film Festival returns for its 10th edition, celebrating filmmaking rooted in photochemical processes and the continued possibilities of celluloid. The festival accepts works originally made with photochemical formats including 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, and found footage, with no restrictions on year of production. The application guidelines can be found here, and the submission deadline is 26 September 2026.
Call for Submissions: 14th Nepal Human Rights International Film Festival
Running since 2010, the Nepal Human Rights International Film Festival returns for its 14th edition from 27 November to 1 December 2026 in Kathmandu. The festival will select over 60 films from around the world that engage with human rights issues, including special screenings and a section dedicated to classic films on human rights issues. The application guidelines can be found here, and the submission deadline is 30 September 2026.
Call for Registration: 2026 Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop India
Organised by Film Heritage Foundation in collaboration with International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop India returns for a 7-day intensive programme covering the many aspects of audiovisual preservation. Open to applicants from around the world, the workshop combines lectures and practical sessions on analogue film preservation and restoration with daily screenings of restored classics. The application guidelines can be found here, and the submission deadline is 30 September 2026.
Call for Submissions: 65th Ann Arbor Film Festival
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the world’s oldest experimental film festival and a longstanding platform for artist-made moving image work. The festival screens a broad range of works, presenting experimental film alongside animation, documentary, narrative, and hybrid forms. Selected work may also travel internationally as part of the festival’s annual touring programme. The application guidelines can be found here, and the submission deadline is 30 September 2026.
This edition of the Asian Cinema Digest was compiled by Phyllis Chan. 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.
