While Southeast Asian films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival many times before, and even won the Palme d’Or, there’s an energy around the region this year that we haven’t felt on the Croisette at previous editions.
Tiger Stripes, a body horror from Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu, about a young Muslim girl going through extreme puberty, premieres Wednesday in Critics Week, while Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, from Pham Thien An, a young director who is at the forefront of a new wave of Vietnamese filmmakers, has been selected for Directors’ Fortnight.
Singaporean director Anthony Chen – who won the Camera d’Or in 2013 for his debut Ilo Ilo – is back in Cannes with a mainland Chinese production The Breaking Ice, which is premiering in Un Certain Regard this weekend.
He is also producing an ambitious slate of Southeast Asian and international films through his Singapore-based Giraffe Pictures. RELATED: Cannes Film Festival Full Coverage “What we’re witnessing now is a maturity of filmmaking in the Southeast Asian region, not just in thought, but also craft and production values,” Chen tells Deadline. “This is evident in the films coming through at major festivals in the past couple of years.
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