Southeast Asian Film Lab
The Southeast Asian Film Lab provides a nurturing and collaborative space for Southeast Asian filmmakers who are embarking on their first feature-length film project. During the Film Lab, participants will receive personal feedback from three mentors and hear from fellow filmmakers as they share their experiences and insight. The programme will end with the filmmakers pitching to a panel of industry experts. Two participants will be awarded Most Promising Project and Fellowship Prize at the Silver Screen Awards.
Projects that have emerged from the Southeast Asian Film Lab have gone on to thrive in other prestigious workshops and markets such as Busan’s Asian Project Market, Cannes’ L’Atelier, Locarno’s Open Doors, SEAFIC and TorinoFilmLab.
Mentors
Soros SUKHUM
Thailand
Soros Sukhum is regarded as one of the most important independent producers in Thailand. In 2018, he received the Silpathorn Award (Film and Video) from the Thai Ministry of Culture, the first film producer to do so. He was conferred the 2020 FIAPF Award by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations for outstanding achievement in film in Asia-Pacific. He most recently produced Memoria (2021), Pop Aye (2017) and Diamond Island (2016).
Maggie LEE
Hong Kong/Japan
Maggie Lee is a film critic, curator and talent mentor. She was a pitching coach for workshops such as Wu Tianming Film Fund (China), Produire au Sud (Taiwan) and SEAFIC Script Lab (Thailand). As an industry consultant, she has also collaborated with Hong Kong–Asia Film Financing Forum, Japan Foundation and Netherlands Film Fund. In addition to serving on numerous international film juries, her bylines can be found in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Criterion, among others.
Image Courtesy of Golden Horse Awards
Vimukthi JAYASUNDARA
Sri Lanka
Vimukthi Jayasundara is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker known for The Forsaken Land (2005), which won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes. His 2009 film Between Two Worlds competed at Venice, Mushrooms (2011) premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, and Dark in the White Light (2015) competed at Locarno. He was a directing mentor at Busan’s Asian Film Academy 2016, and presently head of Colombo Film and Television Academy.
Participants
LE Lam Vien
Vietnam
Fix Anything
For skittish 17-year-old Minh and his father, an alcoholic mechanic, there is nothing they can’t fix—only their troubling past.
Rein MAYCHAELSON
Indonesia
The Burning Land
Jakarta after the 1998 May riots, a time of uncertainty. A female photo developer’s world turns upside down when she receives a photo negative of her troubled son involved in a rape.
Gladys NG
Singapore
Every Mall Burns The Same
In this dark comedy, 44-year-old office worker Osmanthus spends every waking moment of her life wishing the mall she works at would burn down.
NGUYEN Thi Xuan Trang
Vietnam
What the /hel/
In the unlucky year of 'High' village, all yin and yang pigs die during a drought. Pheo, a local from the 'Low' village, in order to be initiated into the 'High', finds a way to turn his lover, an ordinary pig named Nở, into a yin and yang pig to be sacrificed for the Pig Slaughtering Festival.
Aim-ei POLPITAK
Thailand
Saddest Princess on Planet No.4
A suicidal princess with divorced parents got kidnapped by a 7-headed dragon. The young unreliable prince charming is the only person who has information on her whereabouts recorded on his hummingbird robot.
Hans RIVERA
Philippines
Hole in Manila's Heart
At the very heart of Manila lies a huge excavated hole unknown to everyone. A tryptic story unearthed where the land is being excavated, raped, and exploited.
Giovanni RUSTANTO
Indonesia
A Ballad of Long Hair
At the peak of the militaristic tyranny in Indonesia, a long-haired teenage boy pushes the country to the edge of a revolution with his metal music.
Sai Kong Kham
Myanmar
The Birdwatcher
A filmmaker escapes to nature to find himself through the song of birds.
Jarell SERENCIO
Philippines
The Boy and the Fight of Spiders
In southern Philippines, a carefree, spider-obsessed young boy loses his brother and father in a mine’s collapse. He soon digs up a web of lies woven by people in power, realising it takes more than a hero’s ransom to extricate his family from the town and its ever-collapsing tunnels.
Gabriela SERRANO
Philippines
Please Bear with Me
In a near-future Philippines where sleep and dreams are scarce, a middle-aged call centre agent is paid in ‘dream-time’. With that, she visits her deceased daughter and relives her glory days as a famous pop diva.
Image Courtesy of Idan Cruz
Ivan TAN
Singapore
Zini and the Red Flower Fruit
A girl witnesses a fire in a gated community and develops an uncontrollable compulsion to fires. When she is unable to find news or evidence of the fire, she is determined to uncover what really happened that afternoon.
Najam YARDO
Indonesia
A Cursed Woman
A lonely widow is accused of bad luck after surviving three husbands. She takes another chance at love when a cemetery guard shows interest in her, only to find out that he has a death wish.