This year’s Asian Film Focus explores notions of archival and found footage in the context of contemporary filmmaking in Asia, highlighting works from Vietnam, India, the Philippines and Singapore. What can we glean from these glimpses into the past, and what does it say about our present and our future?

Ever since its advent, film has been used as a means to record significant moments. From personal memories to historical milestones, its particular qualities have helped create time capsules that historians, archivists, artists, and filmmakers have turned to for insight into the past and creative inspiration. As the process of recording and archiving film continues to evolve in our lives, found footage has emerged as an important storytelling device as filmmakers seek to appropriate material to shape different narratives, and capture space and time.

This theme will be explored through short films that have been selected by curators from the focus countries. The curators are: Shireen Seno, visual artist and filmmaker (Philippines) / Supriya Suri, Artistic Director of Cinedarbaar (India) / Truong Que Chi, curator of Nhà Sàn Collective (Vietnam) / Leong Puiyee, film manager at Objectifs (Singapore)