Southeast Asian Short Film Competition
The Southeast Asian Short Film Competition celebrates the best short cinematic gems from the region. This year’s selection presents 24 films across five programmes.
The sheer depth and range showcased in these works attest to the abundance of creative talent found within the region. Together, these short films form a vivid tableau of Southeast Asia that is as diverse as it is inspirational.
Programme 1: Rage Against
28 Oct, Wed 9:15PM / 79 min / M18 / Golden Village Cineleisure, Hall 1
In a punishing climate, we run, shout, fight, dance our way to stave off an unbearable reality and stay alive.
Singapore God
To get to work, a man sprints through a city where mundane panic and disaster collapse into one frozen moment.
Exyl / Singapore / 2026 / 10 min / NC16 (Some Nudity) / World Premiere
Flame of the Forest
After a quick taste of freedom, a young nurse arrives home and gets blamed for her grandmother’s death.
Krityishaa Karunagaran / Malaysia / 2026 / 15 min / PG13 (Sexual References) / World Premiere
Blue Days
Beaten by bullies in the schoolyard, a young man finds refuge in an abandoned house and in his lover’s promise of escape.
Vũ Trung Đức / Vietnam, South Korea / 2026 / 20 min / M18 (Some Homosexual Content) / World Premiere
Nien
Between dream and remembrance, two drifters move through a decaying world in search of a vision that may never have existed, where only the quiet ache of forgetting remains.
Pek Jia Hao, Ang Jia Jun / Singapore / 2026 / 14 min / PG13 (Some Mature Content) / World Premiere
Kara: The Burning Woman
Amid killings in the Negros Island countryside, residents develop deadly antibodies that render their secretions fatal to outsiders, while a woman in the city of Bacolod experiences an extreme rise in body temperature.
Dale / Philippines / 2025 / 20 min / PG13 (Some Mature Content) / International Premiere
Programme 2: The Forest Remembers
29 Oct, Thu 6:00PM / 98 min / NC16 / Golden Village Cineleisure, Hall 2
Tucked away in the depths of the forest lies a quiet stirring, a soft tune sung against the violence in the present, begging to be heard, remembered.
A Tree
When urban development desecrates a sacred tree, a foreman silences the inexplicable afflictions that have taken hold of a migrant worker, only to dig up histories that refuse to be buried.
Mark Wee / Singapore / 2026 / 9 min / PG 13 (Some Disturbing Scenes) / World Premiere
Incident on the Mountain
A mysterious helicopter crash buried deep in the mountains brings together a journalist and a soldier to make sense of a fragmented, garbled history.
Savunthara Seng / Cambodia / 2026 / 21 min / PG / Singapore Premiere
Golden Island
Two videographers, one from Java and the other from Papua, make a film together about Papua. They reflect upon the beautiful images of the island and discuss its ironic reality under the Javanese people.
Arief Budiman / Indonesia, Singapore / 2026 / 22 min / NC16 (Brief Nudity) / Asian Premiere
They Made Monsters
Joaquin has been raised by his monster-hunting father to kill. But when he hears the eerily humanlike cries of a captured creature, Joaquin begins to question where the true horror lies.
Jaime Morados / Philippines / 2026 / 16 min / PG13 (Some Violence) / Southeast Asian Premiere
Habitare
Two women, one Thai and the other Burmese, are mutually bound to a crippling fate. An abandoned house deep within a lush mangrove forest offers them a glimpse of solace.
Tanatat Khuttapan / Thailand / 2025 / 30 min / PG / Singapore Premiere
Programme 3: Pervasive Powers
30 Oct, Fri 9:15PM / 80 min / R21 / Golden Village Cineleisure, Hall 1
In its most oppressive forms, power rarely announces itself. What are the inconspicuous structures that determine who gets to speak and who must obey?
RIP ME, LOL
After a leaked sex tape drives her to suicide, Megan returns as a vengeful ghost haunting the men who wronged her.
Calleen Koh / Singapore / 2026 / 16 min / R21 (Sexual Scenes) / World Premiere
The Bovine Comedy
In 2036, cows are nearly extinct. Phop owns Southeast Asia’s last bull, but it is getting old. He employs Jon, the only person who can extract semen from it, and finds himself drawn to Jon’s hands.
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke / France / 2026 / 25 min / R21 (Sexual Scenes) / Singapore Premiere
Through the Cracks
Plagued by a persistent rattling noise inside his head, a soon-to-be bridegroom desperately searches for its source and discovers an irrepressible truth.
Lê Hoàng / Vietnam / 2026 / 14 min / PG13 (Some Mature Content) / World Premiere
Local Sensations
Weaving glassblowing, nature walks, and a mock guide to monument design, Local Sensations is a dark satire on Thai society’s compulsion to sanctify everything it fears to question.
Tulapop Saenjaroen / Thailand / 2025 / 25 min / PG / Singapore Premiere
Programme 4: Surfaces and Slippages
31 Oct, Sat 2:00PM / 95 min / R21 / Golden Village Cineleisure, Hall 2
Images disguise truths and meanings slip through cracks of performance in fascinating ways. Surfaces break gently, little by little, revealing what lies underneath.
Macho Mystic Meltdown Chapter 2: Monster; She Wrote
Alone and isolated in a remote region of Indonesia during the early 1960s, a female Permesta fighter performs military drills and prepares for a Minahasan ancestral ritual.
Natasha Tontey / Indonesia / 2026 / 13 min / PG13 / Southeast Asian Premiere
Tropenkolder
Weary railway workers resist colonial labour through intentional slowness and refusal. As they disrupt a system built on constant movement, idleness becomes a subtle act of sabotage.
Riar Rizaldi / Indonesia, Netherlands / 2026 / 24 min / NC16 (Some Drug Use and Coarse Language) / International Premiere
Shadows
What begins as rehearsal becomes revelation when two young women discover that performance can reveal truths the script never intended.
Sreileak Prum / Cambodia / 2026 / 17 min / M18 (Some Homosexual Content) / Asian Premiere
She Said
On the day she is proposed to, a woman recounts her past in a scam compound. The vulnerability of her story blurs the line between memory, truth and reality.
Ivan Tan / Singapore / 2026 / 22 min / NC16 (Some Sexual References) / Southeast Asian Premiere
What Do You Seek in the Dark?
Loneliness draws a young man to a derelict cinema that was once a haunt for cruising men. Seeking release, he finds the cinema awakening, watching and luring him with an insisting gaze.
Tossaphon Riantong / Thailand / 2026 / 19 min / R21 (Homosexual Content) / Singapore Premiere
Programme 5: There and Back Again
31 Oct, Sat 5:00PM / 111 min / NC16 / Golden Village Cineleisure, Hall 2
The homeland is remembered and remembers, while those who return confront a present that feels familiar yet distant.
The Fever
Returning home after years abroad, a man finds that the locals are now consumed by a desire to leave. As a feverish contagion of unnamed dread spreads among them, young people mysteriously vanish.
Thanh-Giang Nguyen / Vietnam, Germany / 2026 / 20 min / PG / World Premiere
A Gentle Breeze
Returning from his uncle’s funeral, a boy becomes curious about his parents and life at home in Bagan.
Lin Htet Aung / Myanmar / 2026 / 24 min / PG / Singapore Premiere
Surface Tension
Young swimmer Bulet returns to her hometown to attend a cousin’s wedding. Overwhelmed by grief and heartbreak, she tries to keep her head above water.
Gabriela Serrano, Mariana Serrano / Philippines / 2025 / 17 min / PG / Singapore Premiere
Ashes and Echoes
Three interlinked stories about societal expectations: a father preparing his young son for conscription, two soldiers sharing intimate moments in a forest, and the filmmaker’s parents speaking about his childhood.
Koraphat Cheeradit / Thailand / 2026 / 25 min / NC16 (Some Mature Content) / Singapore Premiere
“Vaterland” or A Bule Named Yanto
Reuniting with his sister in Yogyakarta, Yanto, a German-Indonesian, or bule, finds that she belongs effortlessly there. As envy and dissonance surface, his journey becomes a bittersweet exploration of his mixed-raced identity.
Berthold Wahjudi / Germany, Indonesia / 2026 / 25 min / PG / Singapore Premiere