AAIFF OFFICIAL SELECTION 2020
The All Asian Independent Film Festival is thrilled to announce its Official Selection of films that will be showcased at the very 1st edition of the festival. AAIFF 2020 will proudly screen 36 films from 12 countries on the 18th – 22nd November online.
Dramatic Feature Film
LOVER COMRADE
Director Lv HongFeng
Country China
A woman entangled among four men of different classes is trying to find the father of her child. “Lover Comrade” creates complex suspense with a non-linear narrative method, layers upon layers of character relations, and all-around photography exultation!
NEVER MEET AGAIN
Director Wu Pengxiong
Country China
Everyone you meet in your life you might never meet again. To fulfill a promise to his grandmother, and with a further hidden motive in his heart, Wu Peng once again cycles alone around the island of Taiwan. Accompanied by three strangers, he will embark on a far more personal journey than he had anticipated.
WEAVE A PERIOD TIME
Director Tao Han
Country China
Chong Er is a worker in a textile factory in the 1970s, when he gets executed for allegedly breaking the law. Thirty years later, the factory has closed down and the truth behind the case can finally be revealed, but time has muddled the facts and changed everyone’s perspective.
Dramatic Short Film
BURNING
Director VS Sanoj
Country India
“Burning” is a conversation between two young mothers brought together by strange and cruel social realities, at a funeral ghat in Varanasi. Facing a myriad of forms of patriarchal violence, they build an instant bond while trying to strike a bizarre deal they were pushed to negotiate.
FLYING WAGON
Director Kunal Narula
Country India
A 10-year-old boy has the dream of one day sitting on an airplane. He spends his days working in a tea stall near the airport and his nights sleeping in an abandoned sewer pipe, scraping up money any way he can. Will he be able to navigate the world of adults to achieve his dream?
IN THIS LAND WE’RE BRIEFLY GHOSTS
Director Chen-Wen Lo
Country Myanmar
Myanmar, 2013. Based on actual events, this human tragedy follows a 12-year-old child soldier, Su Su Myat, and her mute brother, who are imprisoned after deserting their first combat mission. Su Su Myat is forced to choose between killing her seriously ill brother, or risking dying with him.
THE KITE UNDER THE RAIN
Director Cuong Ngo
Country USA
A stuntman finds himself in trouble when a mysterious man suddenly stands between him and his girlfriend in Bangkok.
THE LICHEN
Director Peng Xiangjun
Country China
“The Lichen” is a personal, semi-autobiographical work about a fantasy experience of adolescence during high school.
LISA
Director Zhang Shufan
Country China
More than 21million gay men live in China, but most of them hide their sexuality because of societal pressure. Unassuming wives get trapped into miserable and loveless “straight” marriages, and Lisa is one of them. After her divorce, she is doing whatever she can to win custody of her son.
MELT
Director Yawata Kimi
Country Japan
Misato is a recluse. Her mother is not there, and she is living with her father whom she resents. Her only pleasure is watching the video of V Tuber “Mel”. One day, Misato’s feeling against her father become a reality.
THE PLUMBER
Director Edzel Rebamontan
Country Philippines
After fixing a clogged pipe at an apartment, a widowed plumber races against time to be compensated for his service to save his critically ill son. As the days go by, the reckless choices and actions made by others will affect the lives of everyone involved.
TOKYO HUES
Director Kazu Okuda
Country USA
A lonely girl with a fresh broken heart wanders into parts of Tokyo to discover freedom and hidden dwellings. She uncovers her emotions and realizes she is still chasing her lover’s past.
TOMBSTONE PILLOW
Directors Daniel Lir, Bayou Bennett
Country USA
A 9-year-old girl gives the Philippines’ wealthiest widow a tour of a graveyard thousands of poor people call home, where she discovers what real riches are.
Documentary Film
THE ART OF FORTUNE COOKIE
Director Jiayi Li
Country USA
Times change, the pure heart remains. Kevin Chan, the new guardian of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, a landmark homemade bakery hidden in the alleys of San Francisco, takes it upon himself to keep alive the century-old craft in a digitalized and mechanized era.
HERE STILL
Directors Tara Dorabji, Jamie DeWolf
Country USA
Filmed in the most densely militarized land on earth, “Here Still” is one of the only international documentaries that captures the complexity and vibrancy of the Kashmiri resistance movement. Shot during Ramadan in 2018 during a temporary cease fire, the film sheds light on one of the greatest atrocities of our times.
ROOTS AND WINGS: YANA GILBUENA
Directors Lisa Yadao, Michelle Sampior, Irene Yadao
Country USA
Nomadic chef Yana Gilbuena discusses growing up in Iloilo, Philippines, getting her start as a chef in the pop-up field, leaving her day job to spread the “Filipino food gospel” to all fifty states in the US, and the future of Filipino cuisine.
Student Film
BIG BROTHER
Director Wang Peng Ran
Country China
A spa center that offers exfoliation using turtles, a young man who trims his chest hair into a portrait of Stalin, a massage parlor with birds living on the ceiling, a masseuse who is trained in martial arts, a northeastern winter mixed with dreams and delusions, a frozen lake, cold weather, and no snow…
CANINITY
Director Chuang-Chieh Liao
Country Taiwan
When a young Taiwanese man visits a remote Escort Karaoke for the first time, he begins to understand the complexity of desire and exploitation.
THE CLOUD IS STILL THERE
Director Mickey Lai Loke Yee
Country Malaysia
When her grandfather becomes terminally ill, Xiao Le, a young Christian woman, faces a critical decision over whether she should intervene with her family’s traditional Taoist rituals.
EYE IN THE SKY
Director Phakpa
Country China
There is a Tibetan village in the wild mountains which is connected to the sky. One day, the old village head came home to find his cattle nowhere to be found. Eventually, he discovers that all the people in the village were taken prisoner.
FAMILY STORY
Director Rendro Aryo
Country Indonesia
Based on the director’s real-life experience, “Family Story” narrates the journey of a family sticking together when a sudden event changes their lives forever, and of a Mother becoming the beacon of light that keeps everyone going.
GLASS CANDY
Director Ji Ling
Country China
“She” made a transfer student commit suicide because of campus violence. Cyber violence, public opinion, and her own guilt have plagued her with nightmares all day.
NAUSEA
Directors Hu Hao, Dong Xingchen
Country China
The French philosopher Sartre defined nausea as the sensory discomfort caused by everything that seemed supposed to be, suddenly becoming unreasonable. Working on this concept, “Nausea” analyzes the absurdities that are hidden beneath the apparent surface.
SPRING IS COMING
Director Yang Zhenyu
Country China
In a parallel world, three characters put together a panorama of stories about dreams, love, regrets, and salvation.
TAIWANESE CHA CHA CHA
Director YuHui (Judie) Yang
Country Taiwan
Against their parents’ wishes, two young girls set out for a secret journey to reconnect with their grandparents. The challenging reunion will turn in a meaningful and unexpected adventure for everyone involved.
A TRIP WITH MOM
Director Sophie Shui
Country Taiwan
Xia Changming stays at home unemployed to take care of his old mother. Pressured by his wife, his economic situation, and the physical and mental burden, Changming feels hopeless, helpless, and depressed. Finally, he decides to take his mother on a journey.
WHEN FALL COMES
Director Yiwei Pu
Country USA
When an old woman falls ill, her husband devises a mysterious plan to fulfill her dream.
Music Video
EURYDICE: LE BALLET DE LA NUIT – DIALOGUE
Director Austin Yip
Country Hong Kong
Based on the plot of Louis XIV’s Ballet de la Nuit (1653), “Eurydice” is a modern reinterpretation of the fourth watch of the original work. Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in this iteration there are no more trees in the concrete forest in which the nymphs live.
A PSALM OF LIFE
Director Indiego
Country China
When we are young, we are easily trapped in the anxiety of nothingness.Standing on the edge of youth we feel confused. At 22 we are searching for meaning, but can we abandon all the pressure of meaning and indulge ourselves?
WHITE VAN BY OOBERFUSE FT. KARA NI JUAN
Director Cherrie Anderson
Country UK
“White Van” is an original track written by the London band Ooberfuse and the Filipino rap group Kara ni Juan. It aims to raise awareness of child abductions and forced organ harvesting by organised crime syndicates that transcend geographical boundaries.
Experimental Film
ALL THIS SURVEILLANCE
Director Adel Jervis
Country China
Shot entirely through Closed-Circuit Television, it tells the story of a vicious husband seeking revenge on his his cheating wife and her lover.
AS IT ALWAYS WAS
Director Yu Sicong
Country China
Mr. Zhao is over 90-years-old. Since his wife left, he has been living with his daughter and spending his days in front of a computer. When he asks to go to his hometown, his daughters need to figure out whether to tell him that his don’t know how to tell him that his old house has been torn down.
CAV
Director G•Munkhjargal
Country China
Take gold and throw away the box. “Utensils” delves into the weakness of human nature by depicting the experiences of a lost young man who only seeks immediate gratification and turns a blind eye to the long term.
THE RESISTANCE OF AMNESIA
Director Shile Feng
Country Netherlands
In between memory and oblivion, crossover borders, death and life, human-animal relationship, ritual practices and secular life, construction and deconstruction, existence and absence, reality and dream translated into a metaphoric montages to resist amnesia.
Animated Film
HOPE
Directors Papa Xing, Aspirin Huang
Country China
After a hundred-year recovery plan, the Earth has almost returned to its former vitality. Man-made machines and high-intelligence AI surveil and restore the planet. Humans have been kept in hibernation in space for thousands of years, as they quietly wait for the recovery of the Earth.
KITE
Director HongWei Wang
Country China
A strange little white man picks up a mysterious box and finds a little grey man inside. Why is the little grey man stopping him from looking for his mother? Why are snakes attacking him every night? Why is the little grey man protecting him? And from what?