On August 17 and 18, Shangri-La Plaza’s Red Carpet Cinemas will showcase 10 cinematic masterpieces from the emerging film industry of Brunei to SEA powerhouses such as Thailand and the Philippines.
Southeast Asia is a tapestry of folklore, myths, and legend. It would take more than a lifetime to familiarize oneself—and perhaps to some degree understand—its myriad tales and vibrant characters, each of which is a reflection of a country’s rich cultural heritage.
The beauty of these lores lies in their timelessness. Sure, they were born from time immemorial, passed down from one generation to the next. But they need no dusting as they continue to serve as guideposts that help us make sense of our everyday lives, especially of things that we struggle to understand.
Last Thursday, August 8, the Association of Southeast Nations or ASEAN, a 10-member strong bloc of countries in Southeast Asia, celebrated its 57th anniversary. And what better way to celebrate such a momentous occasion, as well as August which is ASEAN month, than with the launch of a film festival that celebrates the cinematic talents of Southeast Asians.
On August 17 and 18, the “Tingin: Southeast Asia Film Festival” is back in its seventh year, this time carrying films from all over the region that are bound by the theme, “Enchantments for a Fragile World.” For two days, the Red Carpet Cinemas of Shangri-La Plaza in Mandaluyong will showcase 10 cinematic masterpieces from the emerging film industry of Brunei to SEA powerhouses such as Thailand and the Philippines.
During the media launch, Dr. Patrick Campos, festival programmer, shared that the organizers and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) had a “perfectly balanced dialogue” on their respective goals for the film fest. “NCCA is geared toward cultural diplomacy, a noble goal of building bridges between cultures. While my work has been interested in helping us imagine a world, both situated in locality such as our place in this world and our nation, and also transcending them in particular and not just abstract ways such as helping us imagine our places in the context of other places.”
Dr. Campos, who is a scholar of Southeast Asian cinema, said that when we view the films lined up for the festival, we allow ourselves to see how alike and different we are from one another. The movies, he added, also help us think of ourselves as citizens of a region, rather than simply a nation. “So when we think of what the people of Myanmar are going through, then we can think about what we’re going through as well—not just commiserate but act in solidarity.”
He added that while these films show us how to be in solidarity with our Southeast Asian neighbors, he emphasized that particularity also compels us to make comparisons and distinctions and still think in terms of differences while developing feelings of “connection, if not comradeship.” The 10 films in the festival then highlight differences as much as they do similarities.
Speaking on the theme, Dr. Campos said that it “challenges us to ask what folklore means to us and how it can help us understand the people of this region in this day and age, as separate peoples and as a people with historical links.” With this in mind, he explained that “Tingin” will have “a mix of established and emergent filmmakers from centers as well as peripheries of our respective cultures.”
Also discussing this year’s theme and the enduring relevance of folklore, festival director Maya Quirino said: “Filmmakers have time and again drawn from the rich wellspring of folklore, to revisit old paradigms, to use it as a foil to new but harmful life ways, or to serve as anchor for a society battered by scientism.”
The festival’s curtain raiser is The Long Walk by Laos’ first female filmmaker Mattie Do. Premiering in 2019, this genre-bending feature explores grief, guilt, and responsibility following an old hermit who learns a ghost can transport him to his mother’s painful death.
Self-taught filmmaker Lin Htet Aung from Myanmar captivates audiences with the 2023 experimental black-and-white short feature Once Upon a Time, There Was a Mom that follows a man’s transformation after his wife’s death, reflecting her country’s complex past and paralleling the classic Buddhist tale Vessantara Jātaka. Still on the exploration of grief, there’s the 2021 Kim Quy Bui film Memoryland, which shines the spotlight on Vietnamese death rituals and the intertwined stories of a grieving son, a young construction worker’s widow, and a widowed painter.
In some of the films, Southeast Asia’s rich mythic traditions collide with historic and current events. In Cambodian director Boren Chhith’s 2023 debut short feature Golden Dragon, for instance, an injured man wakes up in a hospital overwhelmed by the rush of his dreams and memories that are haunted by both national and past traumas. Meanwhile, Snow in Midsummer, a 2023 historical drama by renowned Malaysian director Chong Keat Aun, follows a young woman who seeks refuge in an opera troupe during Malaysia’s deadly racial riots in 1969 and, 49 years later, confronts the loss that shaped her life.
Southeast Asian rituals are front and center in the 2021 Thai documentary Worship by Uruphong Raksasad, which immerses viewers into the ritualized power of faith and its profound impact on people’s lives. Indonesian Natasha Tontey similarly blends ancestral ceremonies with speculative fiction in her 2023 15-minuter Of Other Tomorrows Never Known.
Themes of friends and family are highlighted in Singapore’s Dreaming and Dying. The 2023 experimental fantasy drama by Nelson Yeo features three middle-aged friends meeting for the first time in years, only for things to take a turn when long-repressed emotions, desires, and memories surface. In Brunei’s 2022 short film Part of Me by Hazrul Aizan, familial ties are examined when an aspiring singer is caught between his dreams and fulfilling his family’s expectations.
“Tingin” concludes with the Philippines’ In My Mother’s Skin. Directed by Kenneth Dagatan and starring Beauty Gonzalez, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, and Felicity Kyle Napuli, this 2023 psychological horror film is set during the dying days of World War II. The film tells the story of a young girl whose duty to protect her mom is jeopardized by her growing bond with an alluring, flesh-eating fairy.
“NCCA’s Culture and Diplomacy Program remains committed to familiarizing Filipino moviegoers with the multifaceted and rich cultures and cinemas of Southeast Asia,” said Mariel Nini, head of the Sentro Rizal International Cultural Affairs Office of the NCCA. “‘Tingin’ is part of our mission to develop the cultural palate of film students and young moviegoers by exposing them to excellent films from the region.”
This year, the festival will also hold a Best Theme Attire contest on opening night. The winner will receive a P10,000 cash prize. The contest’s mechanics are posted on its social media pages.
