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The 68th BFI London Film Festival has just announced the line-up and – as always – a wide variety of Asian films is included in the vast Programme. Over 12 days, the BFI London Film Festival will present 247 works — including features, shorts, series and immersive projects — from 79 countries. Notably, 42% of the programme (112 works) is directed by female and non-binary filmmakers, highlighting the Festival’s progressive and inclusive outlook.

The 12 days of the BFI London Film Festival (Lff) are filled with the world’s best new films, series and immersive storytelling. Audiences are given the chance to discover the undiscovered, with all feature films and series being presented in the UK for the first time—and in some cases,...

Chloé Zhao’s buzzy Hamnet adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, and James Lucas’ Kate Moss biopic Moss & Freud, are among the titles set for this year’s London Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list.

Running from October 8 to 9, Lff will run feature 27 World Premieres, 11 International Premieres, and 20 European Premieres.

Moss & Freud will screen as a world premiere. The film is a dramatized account of when supermodel Kate Moss decided to sit for famed British artist Lucian Freud. The experience deeply impacted and transformed both of their lives.

Hamnet will be an Lff European premiere. The film will arrive from Telluride, where it has received positive notices. Mescal stars as Shakespeare and Buckley is his wife in the pic. The film is about her struggles to come to terms with the loss of their only son, Hamnet.

The 69th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its full line-up, with six world premiere features, including Rowan Athale’s UK boxing drama Giant and James Lucas’ Moss & Freud.

Amir El-Masry and Pierce Brosnan star inGiant, a biopic of boxer Prince Naseem ‘Naz’ Hamed that follows his rise from the working-class streets of Sheffield and is produced by Tea Shop and AGC Studios. True Brit Entertainment will release in UK-Ireland from October 24.

Moss & Freud is a dramatised account of when, at the peak of her celebrity in the early 2000s, model Kate Moss decided to sit for famed British artist Lucian Freud.

The BFI has set the official competition titles for this year’s London Film Festival, which runs from October 8 to October 19.

Titles include Landmarks, the latest feature from Argentinian auteur Lucrecia Martel, and The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben Hania’s new fiction feature. Both films will screen in London after debuts at Venice. Nia DaCosta’s new film Hedda will also compete alongside Rose of Nevada, the latest film from Mark Jenkin. Scroll down for the full list of titles.

BFI Southbank will serve as the home of the Lff Competition. Previous Lff Competition winners include Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, and Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail.

“Each title in this selection offers a bold and innovative approach to the medium,” Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival Director, said in a statement.

“We are delighted to welcome filmmakers into...

The 69th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its competition lineup, featuring Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Tessa Thompson in a diverse slate of 10 films competing for the fest’s best film award.

Ronan stars in “Bad Apples,” director Jonatan Etzler’s satirical comedy about a primary school teacher struggling with a disruptive student, which will come to London after playing at the Toronto and San Sebastian festivals. Thompson stars in “Candyman” director Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda,” a reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” relocated to mid-century England, which will play in London after turns at Toronto and Aspen. The films represent two of several high-profile entries in this year’s competition, which spans 12 countries.

The competition features an eclectic mix of fiction, documentary and hybrid works from established and emerging filmmakers. Amanda Seyfried leads Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee,” an epic biographical drama about the...

Mona Fastvold’sThe Testament Of Ann Lee and Jonatan Etzler’sBad Apples are among the 10 titles selected for the official competition of the69th BFI London Film Festival.

The Testament Of Ann Lee,directed by Norway’sFastvold (co-writer of The Brutalist), stars Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Abbott and Thomasin McKenzie. It follows the story of the titular religious leader who founded the ‘shaker movement’ in the US in the late 1770s.

The film world premieres in competiton at Venice and then plays Toronto before heading to London.

Another film coming to Lff after Toronto is Swedish filmmaker Etzler’s Bristol-shot Bad Apples.

The Saoirse Ronan-starring Bad Apples will premiere in competition at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, alongside Nia DaCosta’s Hedda with Tessa Thompson and Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, led by Amanda Seyfried.

The 69th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, has confirmed the features selected to screen in official competition at this year’s event. All will compete for the festival’s best film award, announced on Oct. 19.

Irish actor Ronan stars in Bad Apples, described as a biting satire with a thriller aftertaste. Directed by Jonatan Etzler, the film tells the story of a teacher dealing with a conflictive 11-year-old pupil. The U.K. production is the second movie from its director, writer of the prize-winning short film Swimmer and the feature One More Time (2023).

DaCosta (The Marvels, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple) will present Hedda, led by...

Japanese filmmaker Sho Miyake’s Two Seasons, Two Strangers has won the top prize, the Golden Lion, at Locarno’s 2025 edition.

Based on a manga by surrealist artist Yoshiharu Tsuge, the film stars Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung as a screenwriter who reflects on her life through a journey sparked by a chance encounter with a stranger.

The Golden Leopard for best film comes with a cash prize of Chf 75,000 to be shared equally between the film’s director and producer.

The special jury prize was awarded to Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter’sAustria-Germany co-production White Snail, which comes with a...

Like a child chasing a firefly on impulse, “Hair, Paper, Water” directors Trương Minh Quý and Nicolas Graux follow Cao Thị Hậu’s words and gestures on a journey back to the cave of her childhood.

A homecoming evokes the idea of birth — both as a place, in the caves of central Vietnam where Cao Thị Hậu was born, and as a movement between “simple words” and “colorful images” through which the film “reveals a connection between separate elements,” they say.

As the film deploys a watery flow, language, spoken and visual, tends to create waypoints. The imminence of the Indigenous language Rục’s disappearance is mirrored by Vietnamese words appearing in their typographic visuality on a black background, casting a tension between orality and textuality, spirituality and materiality.

The reflection on language, image and sound also unfolds in the evolution of the voice-over, which turns into children’s cries,...

Sho Miyake’s “Two Seasons, Two Strangers” has won Locarno’s top award, its Golden Leopard for titles playing in the Swiss festival’s main International Competition.

As noticed by Variety, the film was warmly received at the festival, charming the critics with its tale of two people who meet by the sea. Based on the manga “Mr. Ben and His Igloo, A View of the Seaside” by Yoshiharu Tsuge, it’s sold by Bitters End.

Jury president Rithy Panh and jury members Joslyn Barnes, Ursina Lardi, Carlos Reygadas and Renée Soutendijk also recognized “White Snail” by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter, which scored Locarno’s Special Jury Prize and best performance for Marya Imbro and Mikhail Senkov. The film, about a Belarusian model dreaming of a career in China, slowly transforms into a love story between two outsiders.

Another acting award went to Manuela Martelli and Ana Marija Veselčić,...

Tabi to Hibi, the latest feature from Japanese filmmaker Sho Miyake, has won the Pardo d’Oro, the Locarno Film Festival’s main competition award.

Miyake is the fourth Japanese winner of the top prize in the festival’s history after Masahiro Kobayashi’s The Rebirth (Ai no yokan) in 2007, Akio Jissoji’s This Transient Life (Mujō), which was one of four films to share the prize in 1970, and Teinosuke Kinugasa’s classic Gate of Hell (Jigokumon) in 1954.

The festival’s awards were announced this afternoon. Tabi to Hibi is based on the manga Mr. Ben and His Igloo, A View of the Seaside by Yoshiharu Tsuge. The film was produced by Masayoshi Johnai. The official synopsis reads: In summer, Nagisa and Natsuo meet by the sea. Their vacant gazes reflect each other as they exchange awkward words and wade into the rain-drenched ocean. In winter, Li, a screenwriter, travels to a snow-covered village.

Two Seasons, Two Strangers by Sho Miyake (All the Long Nights, Small, Slow But Steady) is the winner of the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival’s international competition, which was honored with the Pardo d’Oro, or Golden Leopard, in the Swiss town on Saturday.

The Japanese drama, based on the manga Mr. Ben and His Igloo, A View of the Seaside by Yoshiharu Tsuge, follows Lee, a scriptwriter who is processing what is happening in her life.

“We finally have Japan in the competition again,” Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro had told THR about the film marking Japan’s return to the competition lineup.

White Snail by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter (Space Dogs), a romantic drama about a Belarusian model dreaming of a career in China who finds herself drawn to a mysterious loner who works the night shift at a morgue, won another top honor,...

There’s a real delight, a warm, immediately involving pull certain special, personally inflected films thrust. Nicolas Graux and Trương Minh Quý’s latest collaboration, “Hair, Paper, Water…” belongs to this tiny league, cutting through layers of memory and wedging up a series of gossamer-like moments that feel plucked from the most exquisite ether of existence.

“In a cave, I was born…”, a woman’s voice opens the film, which serrates a lacework of images and sounds, each realised and pulsing with grace and economy. Through mnemonic associations between words and visual impressions, the elderly Mrs. Hậu seeks to diffuse her native Rục language to a brood of children and grandchildren. As she talks, mostly unaccompanied by a response, her familiar world richly opens up for us. She begins with pinning ties with animals and insects, the shots dutifully interspersed.

At times, there’s a shock, like a colony of...

Vietnamese filmmaker Truong Minh Quy became an instant arthouse favorite at Cannes in 2024 with his impressive third feature Viet and Nam. Just over a year later, Quy is back with a new project, co-directed with his frequent collaborator Nicolas Graux (Century of Smoke).

Hair, Paper, Water…, or Tóc, giấy và nước…, in the original Vietnamese, debuts this evening in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente Competition at Locarno.

Shot over three years on a vintage Bolex camera, the film is a rich portrait of an elderly, unnamed woman who, born in a cave more than 60 years ago, now lives in a village caring for her children and grandchildren. The film captures her daily life and the transmission of her fragile native language, Rục, to the younger generations, as she dreams of her deceased mother calling her home to her mountain cave.

The film was produced by Thomas Hakim and Julien Graff of Petit Chaos,...

Following their Main Slate announcement, the 63rd New York Film Festival has unveiled its Currents lineup, featuring 40 boundary-pushing films from around the world. Highlights include Tsai Ming-liang’s new feature Back Home; Radu Jude’s second feature of the festival, Dracula; Ben Rivers’ Mare’s Nest; Alexandre Koberidze’s Dry Leaf; Lucio Castro’s Cannes favorite Drunken Noodles; Trương Minh Quý and Nicolas Graux’s Hair, Paper, Water…; Pin de Fartie, from El Pampero Cine of La Flor and Trenque Lauquen, and much more.

“In a film landscape that is so often homogeneous by design, this year’s Currents lineup is energizing for being a showcase of the boundless possibilities of cinematic language,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “Resurrecting old technologies and subverting new ones, the filmmakers and artists here use an ingenious array of styles and forms to investigate the past and illuminate the present,...

The 2025 New York Film Festival has announced the selections for its Currents lineup.

The international showcase of daring work from adventurous new voices and inventive artists includes 16 feature films and 24 short films from 28 countries.

The Currents centerpiece selection is the U.S. premiere of Ben Rivers’ Mare’s Nest, described by Film at Lincoln Center, which presents the NYFF, as “an enigmatic road movie set in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by children.”

Other highlights in the Currents slate include the New York premieres of Radu Jude’s Dracula and Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza.

“In a film landscape that is so often homogeneous by design, this year’s Currents lineup is energizing for being a showcase of the boundless possibilities of cinematic language,” NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim said in a statement. “Resurrecting old technologies and subverting new ones, the filmmakers and artists here use an ingenious array...

Elusive film about a gay Vietnamese man looking for his dead father’s remains recalls the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

This mysterious and piercingly sad film from Vietnamese film-maker Minh Quy Truong has the air of an extended, lucid dream or realist hallucination. It is a movie about the eternal presence of the dead, which, along with the murmuringly restrained dialogue, makes it comparable to the work of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

The film’s two key characters unselfconsciously bear names that symbolise the nation. It is 2001, and Viet (Duy Bao Dinh Dao) and Nam (Thanh Hai Pham) are two twentysomething men who were babies when the Vietnam war was concluded. They are coal miners and are in love, often having sex actually down in the mine. These sequences are as bizarre as they are erotic, yet conceivably supposed to be understood on the level of a vision or dream,...

Rohan Kanawade’s Cactus Pears begins with the unexpected heartbreak of grief. At the start of this delicate and understated love story, which took home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance earlier this year, Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) and his family tearfully gather in a hospital waiting room. Their patriarch, Anand’s father, has died, and the news sends a melancholic ripple through the despondent clan.

“Yesterday, he kept saying, ‘I’m tired of all this,’” Anand’s mother (Jayshri Jagtap) sputters through tears. Too often, what feels sudden to the living is inevitable to the dying.

Working with cinematographer Vikas Urs, Kanawade, directing from a screenplay he also wrote, stages this early mourning scene with an appropriate sense of claustrophobia. The frame snugly encases the family in ways that recall the bereavement scenes in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, and like Shula, the protagonist of Rungano Nyoni’s haunting Zambian drama,...

Mubi has received fresh push back over a recent $100 million investment it received from Silicon Valley-based private equity firm Sequoia Capital, over the latter’s backing of a number of Israeli defence-tech start-ups.

Filmmakers with connections to Mubi – including Nate Fisher, Sarah Friedland, Cherien Dabis, Tyler Taormina, Aki Kaurismäki, Radu Jude and Joshua Oppenheimer – have signed a letter calling on the arthouse distributor and streamer to reconsider its relationship with the investment firm.

The signatories do not include the directors of Mubi’s recent high-profile Cannes acquisitions such as Lynne Ramsay, Mascha Schilinski (Sound of Falling), Oliver Hermanus (The History of Sound) and Kelly Reichardt (The Mastermind) and Akinola Davies Jr. (My Father’s Shadow).

In the statement, first reported by Variety, the filmmakers highlighted Sequoia Capital’s growing investments in Israeli military technology companies.

It cited Kela Technologies, which was founded in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Southern Israel,...

Filmmakers including Robert Greene, Joshua Oppenheimer, Sarah Friedland, Radu Jude, Levan Akin, and Miguel Gomes are among the more than 35 who have signed an open letter from Film Workers for Palestine calling on indie distributor Mubi to part ways with investor Sequoia Capital.

The venture capital firm has recently invested in Israeli military-aligned businesses, and backlash against Mubi has been growing since the investor’s ties came to light in June. Sequoia had just given Mubi a $100 million investment. But since February 2024, Sequoia has also invested in Kela, a military tech startup that finds weapons and military-grade applications for AI and drone tech. Sequoia itself touts the partnership with Kela on its website as a way to “leverage Israel’s unique cadre of technowarriors to help defend the Western world order.”

When reached by IndieWire, Mubi had no comment.

Since June, the backlash against Mubi has been growing. These are...

Exclusive: TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has selected Thai director Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples To Heaven to receive a €50,000 production grant through the 2025 edition of its Tfl Co-Production Fund.

9 Temples To Heaven marks Chidgasornpongse’s fiction debut after his 2016 feature documentary Railway Sleepers premiered at Berlinale Forum and Busan. He has long collaborated with fellow Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, working as assistant director and casting director.

The film centres on a man who embarks on a one-day pilgrimage to nine temples with his ailing mother and his family of nine, after hearing a prophecy from his boss that his mother may not have long to live.

Naomi Kawase’s latest feature, Yakushima’s Illusion, starring Vicky Krieps, has been added to this year’s international competition at Locarno.

A French, Japanese, Luxembourgish, and Belgian co-production, the film will have its world premiere in Locarno on August 15.

Very little is known about the film’s plot, but it will mark Kawase’s first feature since True Mothers (2020). That film debuted in Competition at Cannes before screening at the Toronto, San Sebastian, and Chicago film festivals.

Since then, Kawase directed the official film of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Kawase began her career in documentary and short films, and in 1997 became the youngest director to receive Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her first feature, Suzaku. Her other credits include Radiance, Sweet Bean, Still The Water, and Hanezu.

This year’s Locarno Competition features 18 world premieres, including new works by Radu Jude and Abdellatif Kechiche. The Radu Jude feature is his much-talked-about Dracula.

Just a year after his acclaimed second feature Việt and Nam, director Trương Minh Quý has reunited with Belgian filmmaker Nicolas Graux, following their 2023 short Porcupine. Set to premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, Hair, Paper, Water… follows an elderly Rục woman who was born in a cave more than 60 years ago and now lives in a village caring for her children and grandchildren. We’re pleased to exclusively premiere the first trailer for the film (shot with a Bolex 16mm camera) ahead of its premiere.

Here’s the synopsis: “She was born in a cave, more than 60 years ago. Now she lives in a village, with many children and grandchildren to look after. Sometimes, she dreams of her dead mother calling her home – to the cave. The film captures fleeting moments of her daily life and the transmission of her fragile language, Rục, to her grandchildren.”

“Water trickles in dark caves,...

Lights On has boarded international sales for “Hair, Paper, Water…,” the latest collaboration between Belgian filmmaker Nicolas Graux and Vietnamese director Truong Minh Quy, which will world premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present section.

The film follows an elderly Rục woman who was born in a cave more than 60 years ago and now lives in a village caring for her children and grandchildren. The intimate portrait captures her daily life and the transmission of the fragile Rục language to younger generations, as she dreams of her deceased mother calling her home to the cave.

Lights On is also representing “Don’t Let Me Die” by Andrei Epure, which is in the Locarno Filmmakers of the Present section.

“We’re thrilled to be part of Locarno’s Festival Filmmakers of the Present competition for the fourth consecutive year,” said Flavio Armone, co-founder and managing director of Lights On.

The Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16) has unveiled the line-up for the 2025 edition, with world premieres including Radu Jude’s Dracula.

Romanian filmmaker and Berlinale Golden Bear winner Jude’s Romania-Austria-Luxembourg co-production, which competes in the international competition, is a comedy drama shot and set in Transylvania that explores the legend of Dracula through multiple lenses. Luxbox represents sales. Jude returns to Locarno after two films played out of competition last year – Eight Postcards From Utopia, co-directed with Christian Ferencz-Flatz, and Sleep #2.

Locarno’s international competition comprises of 17 world premieres, which will vie for the Golden Leopard awards. Among them...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 features, including new works by Radu Jude and Abdellatif Kechiche, as part of its 2025 competition. This year’s event runs from August 6 to 16.

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Radu Jude feature is his much-talked-about Dracula. The film was shot in Transylvania and is said to blend several takes on the Dracula story. Teasing the project as last year’s Locarno Film Festival, Jude said: “I am from Romania. My father is actually from Transylvania. It’s time that someone from Romania does a Dracula film. It’s only Hollywood that has done it 1,000 times. We shouldn’t let Hollywood dominate our Dracula.”

The Abdellatif Kechiche feature is Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due, the third edition in his controversial Mektoub series. Ben Rivers, a Locarno regular, will debut his latest feature, Mare’s Nest. Scroll down for the full Loarno lineup.

Mubi’s June 2025 selections have arrived, featuring the previously announced mammoth drop of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks: Season 1 & 2 and Twin Peaks: The Return. Additional highlights include Trương Minh Quý’s acclaimed second feature Việt and Nam, plus films by Gregg Araki, Ira Sachs, Alain Guiraudie, and Michael Almereyda.

Luke Hicks said in his review of Trương Minh Quý’s Cannes and NYFF selection, “The opening shot of Việt and Nam, writer-director Trương Minh Quý’s sophomore film, is a feat of cinematic restraint. Nearly imperceivable white specs of dust begin to appear, few and far between, drifting from the top of a pitch-black screen to the bottom, where the faintest trace of something can be made out in the swallowing darkness. The sound design is cavernous and close, heaving with breath and trickling with the noise of running water. A boy incrementally appears, walking gradually from...

When the third annual Sunny Bunny Lgbtqia+ film festival opens in Kyiv on April 18, it will do so in the face of a severe funding crisis due to the cancellation of financial support from Usaid by US president Donald Trump.

Usaid’s ‘Transformation Communications Activity’ programme previously cooperated with the Ukrainian government, private sector and civil society to strengthen Ukraine’s democracy. One of the beneficiaries was Sunny Bunny, an event which evolved in 2023 out of the queer film strand of the city’s long running Molodist Film Festival.

“The main challenge has been the budget,” says festival director Bohdan Zhuk...

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights to Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s “Cactus Pears” which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. The Indian gay drama will play at New Directors/New Films this week.

The film was the first Marathi language film to premiere at Sundance and first Indian fiction film to win the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for a Dramatic Film.

“Cactus Pears” follows Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a young city dweller who returns to his family’s countryside home upon his father’s demise and must confront his family about being unmarried, there he finds solace with a farmer (Suraaj Suman) who shares his situation.

“We’re thrilled and proud to have ‘Cactus Pears,’ it’s a film with universal appeal, one that we thing will resonate here with audiences in North America,” said Marcus Hu of Strand Releasing.

The deal was done between Jon Gerrans of...

This is a nifty indie weekend with a busier and higher profile limited release schedule than we’ve seen in some time. The Ballad of Wallis Island, The Friend, Grand Tour, Viet And Nam, Holy Cow and documentaries The Encampments, which is super timely, and Secret Mall Apartment are peppering theaters in major markets.

Many have festival imprimaturs from Cannes on down and great Rotten Tomatoes critics scores. In moderate release, Sony Pictures Classics is out with Steve Coogan in The Penguin Lessons.

Limited openings: Watermelon Pictures debuts Macklemore-produced The Encampments at the Angelika, which has been adding shows, and the doc looks like it’s heading to a super opening of $70+k at one location. The distributor moved up the release date given the timeliness of the film, which follows students at Columbia University who launched a movement protesting the war in Gaza. It features detained student activist...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Strand Releasing opens “Viet and Nam” on Friday, March 28.

A number of films at this year’s Cannes have arrived at the festival surrounded in controversy. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” for its main cast, featuring an actor who’s soon set to go on trial for alleged assault and sexual battery. Fellow main competition title “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” meanwhile, was shot illegally in Iran, leading to director Mohammad Rasoulof being sentenced to eight years in prison and a flogging by the country’s authorities, who pressured the festival to pull the feature from competition; Rasoulof has since fled his home country for Europe.

Flying a little under the radar in Un Certain Regard is a Vietnamese film that has been banned in Vietnam before even receiving its world premiere at Cannes. The second...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 New York Film Festival coverage. Việt and Nam opens in theaters on March 28 from Strand Releasing.

“Leave the light on. It’s easier for me to dream.”

The opening shot of Việt and Nam, writer-director Trương Minh Quý’s sophomore film, is a feat of cinematic restraint. Nearly imperceivable white specs of dust begin to appear, few and far between, drifting from the top of a pitch-black screen to the bottom, where the faintest trace of something can be made out in the swallowing darkness. The sound design is cavernous and close, heaving with breath and trickling with the noise of running water. A boy incrementally appears, walking gradually from one corner of the screen to the other. He has another boy on his back. A dream is gently relayed in voiceover. Then, without the frame ever having truly revealed itself,...

Editor’s note: The following interview contains some spoilers for “Việt and Nam.”

Glistening stars hanging in the dark. A soaring love hidden hundreds of meters underground. Fragile bodies intertwined on a hard rock floor. Trương Minh Quý’s third feature is a story of impossible things merging and blurring, binary opposites that coalesce into something new.

That’s especially true of our titular lovers, Việt and Nam, whose romance we first encounter deep below the earth’s surface in a Vietnamese coal mine. The pair (played by Thanh Hai Pham and Duy Bao Dinh Dao) are so similar that they soon emerge as one (and are even credited as such at the end), yet they both want very different things that threaten to pull them apart.

Even the film itself is a whole split in two, divided by a title card that finally arrives around 55 minutes in. This is a story of queer love,...

The 18th annual Asian Film Awards (Afa) announced the winners and special award recipients at a ceremony held at the West Kowloon Cultural District’s Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong on March 16, 2025. Sixteen competitive prizes and five honorary prizes were given out. The Afa ceremony featured a glamorous Red Carpet and Award Ceremony attracting participants from all over Asia, and was a great success. At this year’s Afa, the Hong Kong actor-director Sammo Hung served as the jury president leading other jury and voting members composed of filmmakers from around the world in selecting the winners. Daishi Matsunaga, along with fellow director Stanley Kwan, served as presenters.

Here are all the awards and nominees of this year’s edition

Best Film

All We Imagine as Light (India, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)

Black Dog (Mainland China)

Exhuma (South Korea)

Teki Cometh (Japan)

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Hong Kong)

Best...

Payal Kapadia’s Indian co-production “All We Imagine as Light” won best film at the 18th Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, capping a remarkable journey that began with a Grand Prix win at Cannes last year.

Yoshida Daihachi won best director for “Teki Cometh,” while Sean Lau won best actor for “Papa” and Shahana Goswami best actress for “Santosh.” Sandhya Suri won best new director for “Santosh,” capping a strong year for Indian co-productions at the awards, where the country has been a bridesmaid in recent years.

Honors were evenly spread otherwise, with “Exhuma,” “Stranger Eyes” and “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” all collecting a brace of awards each.

Proceedings kicked off with a performance featuring the composer of the film that is the toast of Asia at the moment – “Ne Zha 2,” Chu Wan Pin, alongside Jonathan Wong.

During the awards, Dr. Wilfred Wong, chair of the Asian Film Awards Academy,...

"I should have told him not to go... I've been looking for him for many years."...

Andrew Ahn’s latest feature The Wedding Banquet opens this year’s BFI Flare Film Festival, which runs from March 19 – 30 at the BFI Southbank in London.

It’s a big-ticket title, arriving in London following a debut bow at Sundance with a red-hot cast including Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, and serves as a sign of the festival’s continued relevance and mainstream appeal.

Currently the UK’s largest queer film event, Flare is also one of the world’s longest-running queer film festivals. It turns 40 next year. The BFI is already planning a series of celebrations to mark the milestone. Highlights from this year’s lineup, however, include screenings of Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Berlinale title Hot Milk starring Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps, Lamin Leroy Gibba’s buzzy German series Black Fruit, and Truong Minh Quy’s beloved Cannes title Viet and Nam. The festival will close...

BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival (March 19-30) has unveiled its full line-up, with 56 features across three strands, exploring subjects such as Kenya’s ballroom scene and the appeal of dating apps.

The programme has films and shorts from 41 countries, with six world premiere features. These include Kenyan filmmaker Njoroge Muthoni’s documentaryHow To Live, which explores Nairobi’s vibrant ballroom scene and celebrates queer African joy.

In Yu-jin Lee’s Manok, the owner of a South Korean lesbian bar must return to her small hometown after clashing with the city’s younger queer community.

Buenos Aires-set comedy drama Few...

CinemAsia Film Festival 2025 presents its full program for the 17th edition, running March 6-11 in Amsterdam. Featuring 38 handpicked films – of which 27 feature films and 11 shorts, including 1 world and 4 European premieres – the lineup spans blockbusters, art-house gems, and independent productions.

Hosted at Eye Filmmuseum, Studio/K, Rialto De Pijp, and Rialto Vu, CinemAsia invites audiences on a cinematic journey through Asia’s rich storytelling, stunning visuals, and diverse cultural perspectives.

Grand Opening & Closing Films

Opening Film – Happyend by Neo Sora (Dutch premiere) – Director present at the festival.

The festival opens with the highly anticipated Happyend by Japanese-American filmmaker Neo Sora. Set in a dystopian near-future Tokyo overshadowed by an impending catastrophic earthquake, this visually stunning film explores identity and friendship in a world dominated by control and uncertainty.

Closing Film – Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong 2023) by Sasha Chuk (Dutch premiere) – Director present.

CinemAsia 2025 closes with Fly Me to the Moon,...

Ruben Östlund’s highly anticipated “The Entertainment System Is Down” has added New York and Tokyo-based Cinema Inutile as executive producer, continuing the company’s strategic expansion into larger-scale international projects. The film, starring Kirsten Dunst, Keanu Reeves, Daniel Brühl, Nicholas Braun and Samantha Morton, follows passengers on a long-haul flight forced to confront the horror of boredom when the entertainment system fails.

“I’m very, very excited for the film. It’s going to be a very special one,” Cinema Inutile founder Alex C. Lo tells Variety. Lo, a self-described “long-time admirer” of Östlund’s work, is a frequent collaborator of “The Entertainment System Is Down” producer Philippe Bober, including on Lou Ye’s Cannes-debuting “An Unfinished Film” and Jessica Hausner’s Sitges winner “Club Zero.” “The Entertainment System Is Down” is currently shooting and aims for a 2026 release.

Lo established Cinema Inutile just before the pandemic in late...

Get ready for an exciting celebration of Asian cinema! Besides the awards ceremony, the 18th Asian Film Awards presents a series of special programmes, including Asian Cinerama, Masterclasses, and the In Conversation series.

A Palette of Cinematic Delights — Asian Cinerama

The Asian Film Cinerama will present a selection of nominated films and special screenings, with filmmakers and actors participating in post-screening Q&As to share their creative journeys. Last year, screenings were a full house, with prominent filmmakers including Japanese master Hirokazu Koreeda, Sri Lankan director Prasanna Vithanaga, and China’s award-winning actress Jiang Qinqin discussing their filmmaking experiences. This year, top international filmmakers will return, giving audiences the chance to enjoy the best of Asian cinema on the big screen.

Inspiration from the Legend — Masterclass

Film enthusiasts can attend masterclasses hosted by the biggest names in Asian cinema, diving into the art and philosophy of filmmaking. Last year, the...

“Night Stage,” the gay erotic thriller by Brazil’s Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon, has been acquired by German distributor Salzgeber, which will release the film in Germany and Austria. The film will world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama sidebar next week.

M-Appeal is handling international sales for the film, and has released the international trailer.

“We have followed the careers of filmmakers Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon since their first feature, ‘Seashore,’ premiered at the Berlinale in 2015,” Jakob Kijas from Salzgeber said. “In 2017, we released their miniseries ‘The Nest’ in Germany. Now we are delighted to welcome ‘Night Stage’ in our program – a bold and beautiful drama about love, sex, performances and politics, that takes risks and fully delivers.”

Salzgeber plans to release ‘Night Stage’ theatrically in autumn this year. The film joins the distributor’s upcoming slate alongside “Misericordia” by Alain Guiraudie, “Baby” by Marcelo Caetano (also represented...

Indian director Payal Kapadia’s festival favouriteAll We Imagine As Light is one of the many films backed at an early stage by the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf).

Underlining Hbf’s reach, Wei Liang Chiang and You Qiao Yin’s Cannes Camera d’Or winner Mongrel, Palestinian-Danish filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown, Trương Minh Quý’s Viet and Nam and Wang Bing’s Youth (Hard Times) and Youth (Homecoming) were other 2024 festival titles to receive development support from the fund.

At a time when industry finance is ever tighter, Hbf has received a welcome boost this year,...

South Korea’s Exhuma has topped the field, earning 11 nominations at the 18th Asian Film Awards, followed by Hong Kong’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In with nine nominations.

Hong Kong martial arts legend Sammo Hung will serve as the jury president for the awards, which feature a selection of 30 films from 25 countries and regions, competing across 16 categories. The awards ceremony will take place on March 16 in Hong Kong.

Directed by Jang Jae-hyun, Exhuma gained nominations for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Newcomer, Best Screenplay, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

Adapted from the novel “City of Darkness” by Yuyi, Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In gained nine nominations, including Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

South Korean box office hit Exhuma and Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In lead the nominations for the 18th Asian Film Awards, with a jury led by martial arts icon Sammo Hung.

Supernatural thriller Exhuma, directed by Jang Jae-hyun, leads the pack with 11 nods followed by Soi Cheang’s action thriller Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In, which received nine nominations.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Both titles were named in the best film category alongside Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine As Light; Guan Hu’s Chinese drama Black Dog,...

Martial arts legend Sammo Hung has been tapped as jury president for the 18th Asian Film Awards, while South Korean supernatural thriller “Exhuma” and Hong Kong action pic “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” dominate the nominations.

South Korean supernatural thriller “Exhuma,” helmed by director Jang Jae-hyun and marking the return of veteran actor Choi Min-sik, leads with 11 nods including best film, director, actor and actress. The film weaves elements of feng shui and traditional shamanism in its story of an ominous grave investigation.

Hong Kong action film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” follows with nine nominations. Based on Yuyi’s “City of Darkness” novel and set in the 1980s Kowloon Walled City, the film is competing for best film, supporting actor and multiple technical awards.

Soi Cheang’s Hong Kong action film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” follows with nine nominations. Based on Yuyi’s “City of Darkness...

Illustrations by Stephanie Lane Gage.As the year draws to a close, we’d like to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of our contributors. Here are some of their finest essays, interviews, festival coverage, and more from this year. We’re looking forward to much more in the new one. As always, thank you for reading.ESSAYSIllustration by Zoé Mahamès Peters.The current cinema:Sasha Frere-Jones on Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Eiko Ishibashi’s GIFTPhilippa Snow on Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor ThingsAdam Nayman on Pascal Plante’s Red RoomsCassie da Costa on RaMell Ross’s Nickel BoysAmanda Chen on Trương Minh Quý’s Việt and NamSanoja Bhaumik on Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s The SettlersNathalie Olah on Andrea Arnold’s BirdRobert Rubsam on Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimeraGrace Byron on Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV GlowZach Schonfeld on M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap and Michael Showalter’s The Idea of YouSam...

Singapore director Chiang Wei Liang and co-director Yin You Qiao’s “Mongrel,” a portrayal of disenfranchised migrant workers in Taiwan, won Best Asian Feature Film at the 35th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff).

The jury praised the film’s “dense, shadowy and violent world” and its innovative approach to depicting contemporary issues of forced migration. The film has previously won awards at the Cannes and the Golden Horse festivals and at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Lou Ye’s “An Unfinished Film” won the newly-revised Audience Choice Award. The docufiction drama follows a director attempting to complete a decade-old project during the Covid-19 pandemic, blending footage from Lou’s previous films with new material. The film previously won Golden Horse and Tokyo FILMeX awards.

In the Asian Feature Film Competition, Vietnamese filmmaker Truong Minh Quy received Best Director for “Viet and Nam,” a queer love story about two coal miners facing separation.

Việt and Nam.The fate of modern Vietnam is inseparable from the image. The war was the first large-scale conflict in human history to be captured on film and disseminated in real time. And yet, in cinema, hegemonic representations in the mold of Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978) or Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) have engendered a collective derealization in the Western imagination, where Vietnam frequently exists first as a stage for contemporary moral theater and only secondarily as a sovereign nation in its own right; its people are rendered as props, mere shooting targets, denied even a semblance of the on-screen interiority afforded to their foreign counterparts.In the last decade, a growing number of Vietnamese filmmakers have begun asserting agency over how narratives about the country and the lives of its people get told. The recently expanded focus of European filmmaking labs to foster talent explicitly from historically underrepresented regions,...

The 35th edition of the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) concluded with its highest-ever box office earnings. Total ticket sales saw a 10% increase from last year’s edition, with attendance numbers also surpassing the previous edition’s record.

At the festival’s Silver Screen Awards, Mongrel, directed by Singapore’s Chiang Wei Liang and Yin You Qiao, clinched the award for Best Asian Feature Film, for its “stark portrayal of disenfranchised migrant workers in Taiwan.”

The Audience Choice Award went to Lou Ye’s Covid docufiction drama An Unfinished Film.

The Southeast Asian Short Film award went to Thai director Thaweechok Phasom’s Spirits of the Black Leaves, for its “poetic exploration of how an individual’s life is connected to the roots of nature and history.”

Singaporean filmmaker Calleen Koh won the Best Singapore Short Film award for animated short My Wonderful Life, which follows a burnt-out mum who...