A soft-hearted, if sometimes amusing, elegy about love in all forms, be it unrequited, unconditional or burgeoning, as several students navigate a school ‘Talentime’ show and family problems in Yasmin Ahmad’s sincerely-made final feature.
Malaysia’s taboo but painful ‘513’ incident is tackled through Chong’s sophomore feature, an exceptional work that shrewdly uses a diptych narrative structure to delve deeper into unresolved trauma.
This Malaysian slow cinema mood piece may be slight with narrative but it re-centers the protagonist, a Vietnamese illegal immigrant who does odd jobs, in her own space of existential longing.
Puberty and school bullying conflate in this somewhat peculiar feature debut with elements of horror as a schoolgirl discovers her body changing in distressing ways.
Shot in Kuala Lumpur, Tsai’s elliptical style captures the odd beauty of old places that seem devoid of warmth as his array of listless characters try to seek for that elusive intimacy and connection with another human being.
Eternality Tan 