These are twenty short films you shouldn’t miss at the 5th SeaShorts Film Festival, which will take place online on August 25th to September 2nd, 2021. *Screening available only for Southeast Asia*

About the festival:
The SeaShorts Film Festival is an annual celebration of Southeast Asian short film, comprising screenings, forums, workshops, exhibitions, and other creative endeavors from guests across the region. Founded by award-winning filmmaker Tan Chui Mui in 2017, it has grown into a permanent fixture on the calendars of cinema professionals and enthusiasts alike.

All films will be screened through their streaming platform. Filmmaker Q&A sessions, workshops, and forums will be streamed on the SeaShorts Facebook page. Masterclasses will be held via Zoom Webinar and will not be livestreamed. You can purchase a Festival Pass here: http://festival.seashorts.org/ – The standard price of one SeaShorts 2021 Festival Pass is $15 USD. The streaming platform runs on Vimeo OTT, which is normally used for ongoing subscription services. However, because SeaShorts is a time-limited event, instead you will only make a single payment to subscribe to the platform during the festival period.

Important: Film programs & Masterclasses are geo-blocked to Southeast Asia. Only the content on Facebook will be available internationally and to the general public. Please note that dates and times are in GMT+8 Malaysia time. As films becomes available you can access them until September 2nd, 2021 11:59 pm GMT+8.

– Recommended Shorts –

Fixed point observations of celestial objects for five years by continued thirteen-second interval shooting and multiple exposures. No digital copy-paste was used—the sun that appears was shot on film. (SeaShorts 2021)

Trailer:

A film about the city-scape as a diary or essay.

Noom helps Jane throw garbage and find rats at the disposal area. Their relationship grows in many places and helps Jane unlock some feelings.

Trailer:

One suffers in silence, another masks her pain. In the midst of misery, an unexpected bond is formed. Can another’s agony distract them from their own?

In the dune landscape of a cemetery, or is it golf course? Past and present converge in the search for a grave.

Trailer:

A young woman goes to the zoo to meet ex-boyfriends and the secret relationship between a security guard and a married teacher.

Tired and sick of being confined by the restricting norms and expectations of society, two young women must make a life-changing decision in order to escape and break free.

Trailer:

A teenage boy follows a group of young hustlers, thinking one of them may be the anonymous hook-up he has arranged to meet for the night. As he anxiously finds a way to get closer, each of the other boys inexplicably turn up as dead bodies strewn in pavements, until only one of them is left.

Trailer:

A family of three women operating on what-ifs and varying circumstances of the heart – breathing with their struggles with intimacy.

Just a story of two friends discussing the right to protest.

On a late summer day, Wutt Yee plans to chase a better chance in life while it costs to ignore her own state of being happy.

Trailer:

Yao-Wei takes his girlfriend home to Malaysia. He tells his parents of his engagement and this decision sparks off some changes between them.

An old female voice narrates memories of growing up in a Singapore that no longer exists, the passing of a generation and her acceptance of death; deep into the night, mechanical fans rotate to the rhythm of passing wind, a mourner accompanied by restless phantoms and a lonely moth perched upon the yellow funeral tent; together they welcome the silent light of daybreak.

A woman working nights at a beauty salon gives into her interest in a motorbike-deliveryman who drives Phnom Penh’s streets.

Trailer:

Online players talk about their difficulties in escaping “swatting”, a cyber-harassment phenomenon that is sometimes fatal and threatens them whenever they play. The action takes shape through YouTube videos and wireframe images from a video game.

Trailer:

A girl is so in love with her adopted brother, but her brother is engaged to his lover. She decides whether to stay or get away from this take.

The Honor Among Thieves is based on a vernacular Chinese short story titled “Song the Fourth Greatly Torments Tightwad Zhang” written by Feng Menglong, a Chinese vernacular writer and poet of the late Ming Dynasty. It focuses on four thieves in the Song Dynasty who are up against a wealthy evil miser and a corrupted local government.

The filmmaker reconstructs the lost memories of his father, who died when the filmmaker was a child.

The old grandpa has passed away. The Indonesia caregiver, Shally, helps to hold the funeral with grandma and uncle. However, none of the children come home. Under such circumstances, Shally is forced to act on behalf of one of the family members…

Sharing the same bed with his roommate, a young man begins to have a homoerotic fantasy.

For more information please visit https://seashorts.org