PURIN PICTURES ANNOUNCES
GRANT RECIPIENTS FOR SPRING 2024
MAY 1, 2024 - Bangkok
Bangkok-based film fund Purin Pictures has finalized the grantees for the Spring 2024 session. After evaluation and discussion of the submissions, the reading committee chose three fiction and one documentary projects for production support and one documentary project for post-production support.
A total of 140,000 USD will be given out this session to the following projects:
Production Grants (30,000 USD for fiction films, 15,000 USD for documentary films)
MY NEIGHBOR THE GANGSTER (Philippines)
Director: Mario Cornejo, Producer: Monster Jimenez, Production Company: This Side Up
In 1981, a young boy’s life is changed when the Philippines’ most notorious gangster moves in next door to his peaceful seaside residence.
RIA (Philippines)
Director: Arvin Belarmino, Producer: Kristine De Leon, Alemberg Ang, Production Company: WAF Studios
A young punk woman and her friends fight to defend their punk commune, the only home they have left in a land-grabbed neighborhood’s ruins.
INVISIBLE LABOR (Philippines)
Director: Joanne Cesario, Producer: Alyssa Suico, Production Company: Mayday Multimedia
As the Marcoses return to power in the Philippines, labor rights activists preserve their movement’s history through an archive and a documentary.
SOUTH SEA (Indonesia)
Director: Riar Rizaldi, Producer: B.M. Anggana, Sam Hewison, Production Company: New Pessimism Studio
An investigation of a 2022 tragedy, in which ten Indonesians died after a tidal wave swept away a group of people performing rituals on Payangan Beach.
POST-Production Grants (50,000 USD for fiction films, 35,000 USD for documentary films)
PONY BOYS (Philippines)
Director: Joseph Mangat, Producer: Alemberg Ang, Production Company: Daluyong Studios
A documentary tracking teenage Filipino cowboys contending with adolescence while their livelihood and culture are slowly dying.
In this Spring 2024 session, the reading committee chose four Filipino and one Indonesian project to receive grants.
Says Purin Pictures co-director Aditya Assarat, “This session we received the highest number of applications since starting the fund in 2017. It was a very difficult process for the reading committee to choose the grantees and reinforces the need for the different funds in the Southeast Asia region to support our own artists.” My Neighbor the Gangster by Mario Cornejo is a funny and moving recollection of his own childhood living next door to the Philippines’ most famous gangster. Ria, by up-and-coming young director Arvin Belarmino, introduces us to the fascinating world of Filipino punk. Invisible Labor, by labor activist Joanne Cesario, addresses the pressing issue of preserving truth against the rewriting of history. South Sea, by previous Purin grantee Riar Rizaldi, continues his style of examining past incidents through the creative use of docufiction. Finally, Pony Boys, by Joseph Mangat, follows the young cowboys of Baguio, whose century-old culture and traditions can be traced back to the US occupation of the Philippines.
The call for entries for the Fall 2024 session opens on August 1, 2024.
