CinemAsia On Tour 2025

After serving eight years in prison for killing her abusive father, Yen returns to her hometown in Kaohsiung to reconcile with her past and her mother. Amidst Yen trying to work things out, Ai-Lee, a mysterious acting student who bears an uncanny resemblance to Yen, wanders around the city. As their fates intertwine and a shared secret comes to light, Yen and her mother are forced to confront buried truths.

Captured in evocative black-and-white cinematography, Yen And Ai-Lee is centred around a mother and daughter navigating their complex, conflicting emotions in the shadow of shared trauma. Led by a Golden Horse-winning performance by Kuei-Mei Yang, the film is a portrait of troubled love and people trying to return to their lives while being scarred by the past, told with much depth and nuanced vulnerability.

Tucked beneath the lush mountains of northern Thailand, Thongkam and Sek build their own paradise within a durian orchard. The fruits of their labour bear witness to their undying promise and devotion to each other. However, when tragedy strikes and Sek suddenly dies, Thongkam not only loses his loved one but also their cherished orchard. Without his name on the ownership deed, Sek’s mother and her adopted daughter arrive to claim what they believe is theirs, with unresolved family mysteries and dramas in tow.

With stunning cinematography and a vivid score, The Paradise Of Thorns offers a poignant, multi-layered, and sensitive commentary of rural Thai society, where inequality is the norm, and family ties and loyalty are often tested by the circumstances. Set in the very recent time when same-sex marriage was yet to be legalised in Thailand, the film is a powerful testament to queer resilience and an unforgettable melodrama full of confrontations with explosive consequences.

Set in Jakarta in 1946, Isa, a thirty-five-year-old elementary school teacher, secretly assists the resistance during the Indonesian War of Independence. Together with his friend and student Hazil, they devise a plan to blow up a cinema where the Dutch colonisers and their British allies regularly gather. Their main target is Van Mook, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, who considers Indonesia his homeland. Against the backdrop of this high-stakes mission, a passionate affair between Hazil and Isa’s wife unfolds and threatens to endanger the operation.

An adaptation of a novel by Mochtar Lubis, the film portrays a complex piece of history with ceaseless dynamics, delivering a story of rebellion and human desire – political and romantic – that is as timely as ever.