Thailand’s Purin Pictures is giving out a total of $170,000 to six projects from Southeast Asia for its autumn selection, including the latest projects by Daniel Hui and Martika Ramirez Escobar and two projects from Malaysia inspired by legendary filmmaker P Ramlee.
Daughters of the Sea by Filipino director Martika Ramirez Escobar and Other People’s Dreams by Daniel Hui from Singapore are both dramas with a touch of the surreal. Purin Pictures supported their previous works: Escobar’s 2022 feature debut Leonor Will Never Die, which won awards at Sundance, Toronto and Sitges; and Hui’s Small Hours Of The Night, which premiered at Rotterdam this year.
The two projects from Malaysia are Diffan Sina Norman’s debut feature Sitora, a daylight horror inspired by a lost P Ramlee film about a half-man, half-tiger rampaging in the shadows of Kuala Lumpur’s towering expansion; and Finding Ramlee, a debut feature by veteran TV and theater director Megat Sharizal, which is a 1970s dramedy about a P Ramlee impersonator and his run-in with local gangsters.
Purin Pictures co-director Anocha Suwichakornpong said: “This [autumn 2024] session, we received a higher than usual number of projects from Malaysia, which is encouraging. We ended up funding two, and curiously, both films pay tribute to P Ramlee, the country’s most iconic filmmaker.”
P Ramlee was a multi-hyphenate who acted, composed, directed and wrote numerous highly successful films mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, before his death in 1973.
Two documentaries from Vietnam and Myanmar are also grant recipients. Tran Phuong Thao’s Black River follows a group of merchants who persist with their lifestyle despite the changing times, while Aung Naing Soe’s When A Poet Goes To War follows a man who upends his life in response to a military coup in his country.
On the latter title, Anocha added: “This was a project with great urgency and the reading committee agreed it needed funds right away.”
Purin Pictures autumn 2024 grant recipients
Production Grants ($30,000 for fiction films, $15,000 for documentary films)
Daughters Of The Sea (Phil)
Dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar
Pro. Monster Jimenez, Rajiv Idnani
Prodco. Arkeo Films
The story of tour guide Lucia, fish shop owner Delia, and fish vendor Racquel – three lives intertwined like islands, all connected by water.
Other People’s Dreams (Sing)
Dir. Daniel Hui
Pro. Tan Si En
Prodco. Momo Film Co
Two runaway souls escaping a dark past meet in the chaos of Singapore, finding a way to survive by stealing, unseen by the public.
Sitora (Malay)
Dir. Diffan Sina Norman
Pros. Tara Ansley, Armen Aghaeian, Zurina Ramli
Prodco. Rangka Pictures
The urban sprawl that surrounds the village of Kiambang is aggressively expanding, forcing its oldest resident to reveal his stripes.
Black River (Viet)
Dir. Tran Phuong Thao
Pro. Swann Dubus
Prodco. Varan Vietnam
Merchants board an old boat to sail and set up temporary markets in the territories of ethnic minorities living in the fringe of Vietnamese society.
When A Poet Goes To War (My-Thai-HK)
Dir. Aung Naing Soe
Pro. Han Yan Yuen
Prodco. 101fps Production
When peaceful protests fail to sway the country’s dictator, a Burmese poet and his fellow artists pick up arms to fight the military junta.
Post-production Grants ($50,000 for fiction films)
Finding Ramlee (Malay)
Dir. Megat Sharizal
Pro. Syahid Johan
Prodco. Playground Film
Zakaria, a struggling P Ramlee impersonator, juggles his personal life and deceit, forced to live a lie to pay off debts and save his sister’s life
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