PURIN PICTURES ANNOUNCES
GRANT RECIPIENTS FOR SPRING 2018

May 1, 2018 - Bangkok

Bangkok-based film fund Purin Pictures has finalized the grantees for the Spring 2018 session.  We received submissions from nearly every Southeast Asian country and after evaluation and discussion, the reading committee chose four fiction projects to receive a production grant and one documentary project to receive a post-production grant.  The genres of the chosen projects range from drama to comedy to experimental, and of note, all four of the production grantees are first time feature filmmakers.

Production Grants (30,000 USD)

RETURN OF THE OWL (Philippines)
Director: Martika Escobar, Producer: Monster Jimenez
A black comedy about Leonor Reyes, a has-been action genre writer from the 80s who falls into a coma that transports her into the film playing on the hospital television.

SOMETIME, SOMETIME (Malaysia)
Director: Jacky Yeap Swee Leong, Producer: Tan Chui Mui
A drama about the conflicted relationship between a young mother and her teenage son, who care too much for each other, but pretend not to care.

TASTE (Vietnam/Singapore)
Director: Le Bao, Producer: Lai Weijie, Thao Dong Thi Phuong
A surreal drama about Bassley, a Nigerian illegal, who seeks refuge in the working-class women he sleeps with after breaking his leg playing football to support his family.

THE EDGE OF DAYBREAK (Thailand/Australia)
Director: Taiki Sakpisit, Producer: Soros Sukhum
A drama that examines the devastating psychological landscape of a dysfunctional family as it falls from grace in the shadow of war.

Post-Production Grants (50,000 USD in post-production services)

UNTITLED PROJECT (Philippines)
Director: Cha Escala, Producer: Leizyl Badion
A documentary about a son who contemplates on the life of his dying Communist father who now lives alone as a political asylum seeker in Germany.

This Spring 2018 session is the first round of grants that were open for submissions. Taking established film funds such as Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund and Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund as models, Purin Pictures moved to an open submissions format to reach out to a wider community of filmmakers in Southeast Asia. And by partnering with White Light Post, one of Thailand’s leading post facilities, a new post-production grant could also be unveiled.  Says Artistic Director Anocha Suwichakornpong, “This session was a new step for us. We were happy with the interest and high number of submissions from the region. There is definitely no shortage of talent in Southeast Asia.”