First Feature Competition

Becoming Human

The guardian ghost of an abandoned cinema contemplates reincarnation amid the hubbub of Cambodia’s dizzying transformation in Polen Ly’s lyrical drama.

Diamonds in the Sand

This tender film, 11 years in the making, follows Yoji, a lonely Japanese man longing for connection and community, which he believes can be found in the Philippines.

Dreamers

Two Nigerian migrants dare to imagine a vibrant future outside of their confinement at a British immigration removal centre.

Ish

A racially profiled police stop-and-search sets two best friends on a collision course in Imran Perretta’s intimate and poetically rendered drama.

Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)

A Dominican-American teen must re-evaluate his life choices when his pregnant girlfriend moves in with him, in Joel Alfonso Vargas’ riveting film.

My Father’s Shadow

Akinola Davies Jr’s intimate and resplendent film chronicles two brothers spending a rare day with their father in Lagos.

One Woman One Bra

Kenyan filmmaker Vincho Nchogu stuns with her humorous account of one woman’s fight to keep her ancestral land.

Sink

Award-winning shorts filmmaker Zain Duraie’s taut domestic thriller explores the effects of mental illness on individuals and family.

Songs of Forgotten Trees

Opposites repel and then attract in this delicately woven story of female connection, where two women struggle to survive within the relentless rhythms of life in Mumbai.

A Useful Ghost

The wife of a factory owner returns from the dead to haunt a vacuum cleaner in Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s wildly inventive and wonderfully original film.