In the picturesque island of Cuyo, Palawan, an illegal Taiwanese fishing vessel docks carrying the fisherman named Muo Sei, a man looking for something or someone with the name Ploning. He has from sunrise to sundown to look for this “Ploning”. In his search, Ploning is revealed to be the island’s town belle of the [...]
Apron Strings is a parallel story of two families and two cultures set in suburban Otahuhu in South Auckland, New Zealand. It explores the boundaries of nurture and control, mothering and smothering, and how we sometimes have to let go of our individual sense of what is ‘right’, to do what is ‘good’ for all. [...]
A heart-breaking look at physically disabled Indian orphan Badrul (M.Subash), who leads a hard life as he is mistreated by his stepmother Mon (Maimon Mutalib) and step-aunt Zaitun (Khatijah Tan). Despite his disabilities, Badrul is independent and earns his living by selling keropok and porridge. He still loves his stepmother unconditionally even though she verbally [...]
After completing his naval service, young Asa travels back to the Kazakh steppe where his sister and her shepherd husband live a nomadic life. To start his new life, eager Asa must get married first before he can become a shepherd himself. Asa’s only hope for marriage on the deserted steppe is Tulpan, daughter of [...]
Aki Onodera, a young Japanese student, is haunted by dreams of long-lost memories from her early childhood. After her studies she goes to her parents’ house and discovers an old package from a foreign land. An old camera containing film and a yellowed envelope with a letter and a map of a foreign country with [...]
Karim works at an ostrich farm outside of Tehran. He leads a simple and contented life with his family in his small house, until one day when one of the ostriches runs away. Karim is blamed for the loss and is fired from the farm. Soon after, he travels to the city in order to [...]
Globalisation has brought with it methods of strategic manipulation by the top management of multinational corporations. Introduction of ‘Contract Labour’ and ‘Project Workers’ has put the poor workers at the receiving end. When a Mumbai-based MNC expelled 70 project workers, they and their families fought for their rights tooth and nail but lost, for they [...]
Arif, a young director, has adapted for film one of the popular Mahabharata episode of Eklavya’s offering of honorarium to his teacher Dronacharya. Eklavya sacrificed his right thumb to Drona so that Arjuna’s supremacy in archery is upheld. While making the film on this mythological incident, Arif comes to know from the Santhals that for [...]
Alex has just arrived in Buenos Aires to visit his dying father. There he meets his family and old friends of his father, who remind him of his childhood. Alex and his family had to flee Argentina in the early 80s. They arrive in Berlin, finding a new home in a factory full of weird [...]
In the year 1850, the suffering of the 430 million Chinese people under the corrupt rule of the Qing dynasty set the stage for the Taiping Rebellion. During the chaos of the decade long civil war, 50 million people died from either hunger or battle. In the fall of 1870, General Pang stands high atop [...]