Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022!

Today we celebrate our 17th birthday. It is no exaggeration to say that we owe it to the  support of many friends and volunteers over the years to have come this far. And for that, we would like to say a huge thank you to each and everyone of you. 

Archivist Chew Tee Pao introducing a screening of Bambaru Avith (1978, dir. Dharmasena Pathiraja) in June 2021. The film was restored by the Asian Film Archive and selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2020 for Cannes Classics.

In 2021, in spite of the pandemic, we continued to save, digitise and restore at risk films.  We sold-out two Retrospectives on Wong Kar-Wai and Abbas Kiarostami; screened, curated an exhibition and launched specially designed merchandise inspired by the local cult classic They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong and showcased a gamut of Asian cinema all through the year.  

Exhibition on the restoration of They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong (1978, dir. Bobby A Suarez)
Merchandise designed by Knuckles & Notch for AFA’s showcase of They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong
Exhibition during Retrospective: Wong Kar-Wai showcasing artworks by local and regional artists inspired by Wong Kar-Wai’s filmography
Merchandise designed by Knuckles & Notch designed for Retrospective: Wong Kar-Wai

As we usher in the new year, we will press on to preserve and explore Asian cinema. We hope you will continue to support us in our work and mission. 

Join us as we  kick off 2022 with ‘hahaha: a season of comedy’,  Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s early film Cheerful Wind, and a curated programme of Asghar Farhadi’s films, together with his latest feature, A Hero

*Tickets are now on sale for hahaha: a season of comedy and Cheerful Wind

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