In-Docs (Indonesia)

Smoke gets in your eyes by Alvin Lee

Best Singapore Short Film

Relevant and humorous, the film manages to explore how grief works, whether performative or real in a profound way. And the award goes to Smoke gets in your eyes, by Alvin Lee.

Bopha Oul In “Further and further away” By Polen Ly

Best Performance Award

The authenticity and strength in the face of unending uncertainty. And for her moving and intimate portrayal of a young woman torn between memories of her past and the prospect of a moving to the big city in search of a different future, the jury has chosen Bopha OUL, the female lead from Further and further away, by Cambodian filmmaker Polen Ly.

Dikit by Gabriela Serrano

Special Mention Award

The jury is very happy to give this Special Mention Award to a film with sure-handed direction; one that uses film form effectively to tell a feminist horror story in the manner of alluring female Southeast Asian monsters.  The award Special Mention goes to …. Dikit.

Le Lam Vien for “FIX ANYTHING”

Best Director

A finesse of the craft and the mise-en-scene are clearly displayed in this stylish and chaotic adventure with a signature style of an exciting future blockbuster film director. The award goes to Le Lam Vien for FIX ANYTHING.

Vania on Lima Street By Bayu Prihantoro Filemon

Best Southeast Asian Short Film

This is one of the hardest decisions as there were many strong films this year: This  film gets our vote for broaching an important part of a country’s dark history in a powerful yet subtle way. By offering kindness and empathy, it  suggests healing of social trauma through intergenerational hope. The winner of Best Southeast Asian Film is Vania on Lima Street.

Zukhara Sanzysbay For “Convenience Store”

Best Performance

The Best Performance goes to an actor who brings restraint and enormous power to a character of great resilience and complexity. The prize for Best Performance goes to Zukhara Sanzysbay for Convenience Store.

Arnold Is a Model Student

Special Mention Award

In addition to the prizes, the jury would like to award a Special Mention to a film that brings a fresh and unusual tone to political subject matter, approaching the theme of authoritarianism with wit and irreverence. The Special Mention goes to Arnold Is a Model Student by Sorayos Prapapan.

Laha Mebow For “Gaga”

Best Director

The Best Director prize goes to a filmmaker who has made a drama of great warmth and sensitivity. This director brings to life a world they know well and beautifully guides an ensemble cast of non-professional actors. The prize for Best Director goes to Laha Mebow for Gaga.

Autobiography By Makbul Mubarak

Best Film

The Best Film Award goes to a film that impressed us with its control and clarity of vision. The film is a vivid character study, a powerful allegory of national trauma, an urgent dissection of the fascist mindset and how it persists. The Best Asian Feature Film goes to Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak.

Gabriela Serrano

Fellowship Prize

Rein Maychaelson

Fellowship Prize

Gladys Ng

Special Mention Award

Giovanni Rustanto

Most Promising Project

Benjamin Yap Kee Siang

Youth Critic Award

The winning essay this year is a beautiful and insightful exploration of disability in cinema. It responds to the empathetic treatment of deafness in Sho Miyake’s SMALL, SLOW, BUT STEADY. At the same time, it also critically points out that the film’s use of intertitles is often jarring and abrupt, exposing cinema’s fundamentally uncomfortable relationship with what is usually thought of as different, or “abnormal”, experiences of sight and sound. For their perceptive approach to cinema and clarity of writing, this year’s Youth Critic Award goes to Benjamin Yap Kee Siang.

Lav Diaz

Jury Head | Philippines

Lav Diaz is an award-winning Filipino auteur who excavates his country’s history in films renowned for their epic lengths, pared-down aesthetics and political convictions. Besides directing, he is also a writer, producer, editor and cinematographer. His notable works include Melancholia (2008), which won Best Film in the Orizzonti section at Venice; From What Is Before (2014), which clinched the Golden Leopard at Locarno; The Woman Who Left (2016), which took home the Golden Lion at Venice; and A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016), which was awarded the Silver Bear at the Berlinale.

Dennis Lim

Jury | USA

Dennis Lim is the artistic director of New York Film Festival. From 2013 to 2022, he was director of film programming at Lincoln Center, where he co-chaired the New Directors/New Films selection committee and co-founded the Art of the Real festival. He most recently authored Tale of Cinema (2022), a monograph on Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo, as well as The Man from Another Place (2015), a critical biography of David Lynch. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Cinema Scope and Film Comment.

Kim Soyoung

Jury | South Korea

Kim Soyoung is a filmmaker, writer and academic. She directed two documentary trilogies, the first on Korean women’s history comprising Koryu: Southern Women, South Korea (2001), I’ll Be Seeing Her (2002) and New Woman: Her First Song (2004), and the second titled Exile Trilogy, that includes Goodbye My Love, North Korea (2014-2018). She also directed the fiction feature Viewfinder (2010). Her recent published works include Korean Cinema in Global Contexts: Post-Colonial Phantom, Blockbuster and Trans-Cinema (2022) and she edited the 10-volume History of Korean Cinema. Kim is the director of Trans:Asia Screen Culture Institute and a professor of cinema studies at Korea National University of Arts.

Ritu Sarin

Jury | India

Ritu Sarin is an Indian filmmaker and artist. Her documentary The Sun Behind the Clouds (2009) won the Václav Havel Award at the One World film festival in Prague. Her feature debut Dreaming Lhasa (2005) world-premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, while her second feature The Sweet Requiem (2018) also premiered at the same festival. All her films were made together with her partner Tenzing Sonam. She is the founder-director of Dharamshala International Film Festival, now in its 11th edition and widely considered to be one of India’s leading independent film festivals.

Khoo Gaik Cheng

Jury | Malaysia

Khoo Gaik Cheng is an associate professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia’s School of Media, Languages and Cultures where she teaches Southeast Asian cinema. She has published widely on independent filmmaking in Malaysia, Singapore and beyond, and most recently co-edited Southeast Asia on Screen: From Independence to Financial Crisis (1945–1998) (Amsterdam University Press, 2020). She founded the Association of Southeast Asian Cinemas which held its inaugural conference in 2004.

Lucky Kuswandi

Jury | Indonesia

Lucky Kuswandi is a screenwriter and director whose films explore issues of identity, acceptance and inclusivity. A Berlinale Talent alumnus, his first feature Madame X (2010) won Best Film at Copenhagen LGBT Film Festival. In 2015, his short film The Fox Exploits the Tiger’s Might competed in Cannes’ Critics’ Week, and won Best Short Film and Best Director at SGIFF’s Silver Screen Awards. He teaches film directing at the Universitas Multimedia Nusantara.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Jury | USA/Vietnam

Tuan Andrew Nguyen is an artist whose work explores strategies of political resistance by reworking historical narratives and examining speculative supernaturalisms. His films, video works and sculptural installations have been exhibited in the Berlin Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Whitney Biennial and Asia Pacific Triennial, among others. He is a founder of art collective The Propeller Group and artist-run alternative space San Art in Ho Chi Minh City.