Five Asian short films from the AFA Collection, Restless Forms gathers varied and distinctive approaches to the cinematic craft through works that move between performance, memory, gesture, and personal reflection, thereby bringing together the programme’s thematic notion of shifting voices and forms.

Amen (1998)
Director: Khavn De La Cruz
Runtime: 19 mins
Country: Philippines
Language: Filipino with English subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Shot on 16mm before Filipino filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz became widely associated with digital filmmaking, Amen is a sharp and irreverent satire on blind obedience that draws from the Filipino tradition of mano, placing an elder’s hand on one’s forehead as a gesture of respect, to reflect on authority, conformity, and inherited social rituals.

I’m Starving (1998)
Original Title: 我餓
Director: Yau Ching
Runtime: 13 mins
Country: USA/Hong Kong
Language: English with English subtitles
Rating: M18

Synopsis

Shot on 16mm, this early short by Hong Kong filmmaker Yau Ching unfolds in a Chinatown apartment in New York City, where the ghost of a Chinese woman lives alongside her African American partner, feeding on takeaway menus and paper money brought home by her flatmate. As the couple faces financial hardship and the threat of eviction, the film follows their attempts to find a way out together.

根欲 (The Inescapable Desire of Roots, 2025)
Director: Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen
Runtime: 6 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: Mandarin with English subtitles
Rating: R21

Synopsis

A man with hair growing uncontrollably over his body is overtaken by both ecstasy and anguish, as the sprouting becomes a source of discipline and self-punishment. Through layered 16mm and Super 8 film loop projections created using the filmmakers’ own hair, the film stages a visceral confrontation with the body, control, and existential unease.

截止 (Deadline, 2011)
Director: Toh Hun Ping
Runtime: 15 mins
Country: Singapore
Language:
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Facing the impending demolition of a home, Deadline unfolds through faded and washed-out images of photographs, souvenirs, and personal artefacts belonging to and left behind by family members, as a person’s thoughts and memories gradually surface through fragments of text and recollection. Through this accumulation of objects and memories, the film reflects on personal history, familial inheritance, and identity.

Dancing Othello (2002)
Director: Ashish Avikunthak
Runtime: 15 mins
Country: Singapore
Language:
Rating: PG

Synopsis

A performer, played by Indian actor and theatre practitioner Arjun Raina, recites passages from Othello as Kathakali, the classical dance-drama tradition of Kerala, intersects with street theatre in this hybrid performative work. Shot on 16mm, the film uses stylised gestures and theatrical abstraction to reflect on the ironies and tensions of the postcolonial condition in contemporary India.

This screening is part of the programme Reciprocal 2026. For more screenings of this programme. Please click here. 

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