Southeast Asia continues to produce some of the most exciting, adventurous, and socially incisive cinema on the international festival circuit. At HIFF46, the SOUTHEAST ASIAN SHOWCASE brings together six films representing the breadth of contemporary filmmaking from the region—from bold new voices making their feature debuts to internationally acclaimed auteurs returning with deeply personal new work.
Many of this year’s selections arrive in Hawai‘i after acclaimed runs at the world’s major film festivals, including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Busan, Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, and Toronto. Together, they offer a snapshot of a region in constant motion, with filmmakers confronting questions of class, family, identity, faith, sexuality, and rapidly changing societies.
From the Philippines and Myanmar to Thailand and Singapore, here are six films to discover at HIFF46.
FILIPIÑANA — Philippines
One of the breakout films of the year, Rafael Manuel’s FILIPIÑANA arrives at HIFF after an acclaimed international festival run.
Set amid the manicured greens of an exclusive country club outside Manila, the film follows 17-year-old Isabel, an Ilokana “tee girl” whose job is to serve the wealthy and powerful members around her. As she ventures deeper into the club’s privileged inner sanctum, its pristine surface begins to reveal something far more sinister.
Manuel transforms the golf course into a microcosm of Philippine society, examining class, colonialism, labor, and power through a darkly comic and increasingly unsettling lens.
2 VALID IDs — Philippines
A seemingly mundane bureaucratic requirement becomes a desperate fight for survival in Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan’s 2 VALID IDs.
Sylvia, an impoverished farmer, urgently needs to collect money sent by a relative to pay for her gravely ill husband’s medical care. There is just one problem: the remittance center requires two valid IDs, and Sylvia does not have even one. Forced into an exhausting maze of fixers, fees, lines, and paperwork, she watches the money intended to save her husband slowly disappear.
What begins as an administrative obstacle becomes a gripping indictment of a system that demands people prove their identity before granting them access to the most basic necessities.
9 TEMPLES TO HEAVEN — Thailand
World premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 TEMPLES TO HEAVEN turns a distinctly Thai spiritual tradition into a funny, tender, and deeply moving family odyssey.
After a fortune teller warns 63-year-old Sakol that his elderly mother may soon die, he gathers nine family members for an ambitious one-day pilgrimage to nine temples, hoping that making merit might prolong her life. But as the temples blur together and exhaustion sets in, old grievances emerge alongside generations of affection, obligation, and unresolved tension.
The result is a warm meditation on mortality, faith, and family—and whether the greatest blessing might simply be spending time together while we still can. The film is also nominated for HIFF46’s Kau Ka Hōkū Award presented by Hawaiian Airlines.
FRUIT GATHERING — Myanmar
Aung Phyoe’s FRUIT GATHERING is a quietly powerful portrait of queer desire and working-class life in contemporary Myanmar.
Two young women working at a textile factory in industrial Yangon endure exhausting labor, social repression, and economic uncertainty. As the two grow closer, feelings long kept beneath the surface begin to emerge, offering the possibility of intimacy and freedom in a society where their love remains deeply stigmatized.
Told through silences, gestures, and unspoken desires, Aung Phyoe’s feature debut finds tenderness amid oppression. FRUIT GATHERING is also nominated for HIFF46’s Kau Ka Hōkū Award presented by Hawaiian Airlines.
AH GIRL — Singapore
Set in Singapore in 1994, Ang Geck Geck Priscilla’s AH GIRL captures the bewildering adult world entirely from a seven-year-old’s point of view.
Spirited, outspoken, and running an enterprising chewing-gum business at school, Ah Girl should be occupied with friends and her latest crush. Instead, she finds herself caring for her younger sister while being shuttled between two separated parents absorbed in their own conflicts and relationships.
Drawing from the director’s childhood memories, AH GIRL balances playful humor with the outsized emotions of being young, when adult behavior can seem both inexplicable and devastating.
WE ARE ALL STRANGERS — Singapore
Acclaimed Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, director of ILO ILO, WET SEASON, and THE BREAKING ICE, returns with WE ARE ALL STRANGERS, an expansive and deeply human portrait of families undergoing unexpected transformations.
In contemporary Singapore, 21-year-old Junyang drifts through the freedoms of youth while his father struggles to hold their modest household together. When an unexpected development forces Junyang and his girlfriend to confront adulthood much sooner than anticipated, the distance between father and son begins to collapse. Meanwhile, a new woman entering his father’s life creates another possibility for family and belonging.
With his characteristic tenderness, Chen explores the bonds between parents, children, lovers, and strangers—and the ways families can fracture, reform, and ultimately endure.
SOUTHEAST ASIA ON THE WORLD STAGE
What connects these six films is not a single style or definition of Southeast Asian cinema, but precisely the opposite. The region contains a remarkable diversity of languages, cultures, histories, and cinematic traditions, and this year’s showcase reflects that range.
There is biting social satire in FILIPIÑANA, bureaucratic tragedy in 2 VALID IDs, spiritual and familial comedy in 9 TEMPLES TO HEAVEN, queer intimacy in FRUIT GATHERING, childhood memory in AH GIRL, and an intergenerational family drama in WE ARE ALL STRANGERS.
These are films deeply rooted in their individual cultures yet resonating far beyond national borders. Their journeys through the world’s leading film festivals demonstrate the growing international reach of Southeast Asian filmmakers—and HIFF continues its longstanding commitment to providing a platform in Hawai‘i where audiences can encounter the very best new cinema emerging from across the Asia-Pacific.
Explore the complete HIFF46 SOUTHEAST ASIAN SHOWCASE and get tickets.
