PURIN PICTURES ANNOUNCES
GRANT RECIPIENTS FOR FALL 2021
NOVEMBER 1, 2021 - Bangkok
Bangkok-based film fund Purin Pictures has finalized the grantees for the Fall 2021 session. After evaluation and discussion of the submissions, the reading committee chose five fiction and one documentary projects to support. A total of 185,000 USD will be given out this session to the following projects:
Production Grants (30,000 USD in cash for fiction, 15,000 USD in cash for documentary)
SAM (Philippines)
Director: Erika Del Mundo, Producer: Pamela Reyes, Production Company: Create Cinema
A drama about Sam, a woman who must come to terms with her involvement in a massacre, and the disappearance of her boyfriend, who recruited her for the crime.
STRANGER EYES (Singapore)
Director: Siew Hua Yeo, Producer: Fran Borgia, Production Company: Akanga Film Asia
A thriller about a voyeur who shadows a young couple that just lost their baby, until a turn of events leads the hunter to become the hunted in a dangerous imitation game.
YOU ARE HERE (Malaysia, France)
Director: Joon Han Yeo, Producer: Joon Han Yeo, Franck Priot, Production Company: Amok Films
A comedy about a disillusioned filmmaker who battles strange forces hell-bent on destroying him as he embarks on the production of another soulless mainstream movie.
A USEFUL GHOST (Thailand)
Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Producer: Cattleya Paosrijaroen, Soros Sukhum, Production Company: 185 Films
A comedy about a woman who returns from the dead as a ghost possessing the family's vacuum cleaner to get rid of dust and protect her allergy-prone sun.
TOUCH THE COLOUR (Philippines)
Director: Baby Ruth Villarama, Producer: Gary Kam, Production Company: Voyage Studios
A documentary about two sisters who have served 18 years in prison for kidnapping and their chance for parole, if only the boy's mother will forgive them.
Post-production Grants (50,000 USD in services for fiction, 30,000 USD in services for documentary)
BEFORE, NOW AND THEN (Indonesia)
Director: Kamila Andini, Producer: Ifa Isfansyah,, Gita Fara, Production Company: Fourcolours Films
A documentary about Di, a 13-year old Hmong girl in the misty mountains of north Vietnam, who walks a thin line between childhood and becoming an adult.
This Fall 2021 granting session saw interesting projects from all around the region, but in particular from Malaysia and the Philippines. "We're seeing that the high number of submissions from certain countries directly reflects the level of local funding available in those countries to support their filmmakers," says Purin Pictures co-director Aditya Assarat. "Especially with higher-budget projects, the local funding needed to form the foundation of a multi-country co-production is crucial".
This round saw grants go to relatively established filmmakers. Stranger Eyes, by Singapore's Yeo Siew Hua, is the follow-up to his Locarno Golden Leopard winner A Land Imagined. Malaysia's Yeo Joon Han, who won a prize in Venice for his 2008 Sell Out! returns with another self-reflexive comedy in You are Here. Indonesia's Kamila Andini, fresh off a prize from Toronto 2021 for her film Yuni, is finishing up Before, Now, and Then. And seasoned documentarian Baby Ruth Villarama from the Philippines is deep in production on Touch the Color. New-comers to receive grants are Thailand's Ratchapoom Bunbanchachoke for A Useful Ghost, and Philippines Erika Del Mundo for Sam, which were both awardees at the Locarno Open Doors event to support Southeast Asian projects.
