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 also thrived in other prestigious workshops and markets such as Busan’s Asian Project Market, Cannes’ L’Atelier, Locarno’s Open Doors, and TorinoFilmLab.

Calling all interested applicants to join the 2023 programmes, Submit your applications for the following programme now! Click here to apply. If you have any enquiries, please write in to programme@sgiff.com.

Mentors 2022

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 2022

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.