WORLD SHORTS – WHY DO WE LIVE HERE?

Fri 11 July | 13:15 | Pálás Screen 3 | 98’
 

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This collection of international short films presents stories of trauma, resilience, and survival. From a Malaysian military camp’s humiliation of young women to the legacy of war in 1960s Congo, gentrification, xenophobia, climate crisis, and systemic injustice. These films ask, “How do we stay? How can we endure?”
Films in our programme can include mature themes/adult content. Viewer discretion is advised.

WAShhh

Set in Malaysia National Service Camp, a Chinese female trainee is commanded to lead her multiracial female comrades to wash stained sanitary pads in the middle of the night.

Director/Writer: Mickey Lai
Producers: Lim Shu Jia, Ciarán Charles

Ne Me Quitte Pas

1962. Matthias, a former soldier stationed in the Belgian Congo, goes into exile on an island in the Mediterranean Sea with his beloved Awa, a young Congolese woman he met during his deployment in Africa.

Director/Writer: Karim Huu Do
Producer: Zico Judge

The Little Ancestor

An ancestral house comes to life, builds itself, and unveils its long life of 150 years. Over the years, it leads us to feel the passage of time in the heart of a growing and buzzing city that will eventually bring about its end.

Director/Writer: Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur
Producer: Stéphanie Gagné

Roots that Reach Toward the Sky

After her mother’s traditional Chinese medicine shop is vandalized, a young botanist draws on the resilience of her local community, and the healing remedies of her ancestors, to contend with her deepest anxieties.

Director: Jess X Snow
Writers: Jess X Snow, Kit Yan
Producers: Akemi Look, Yumeng Han, Frisly Soberanis, Eris Qian

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Heat Me

During a severe summer heatwave, three women are stuck in their apartment without A/C. As the city buzzes with the uproar of a hygiene union strike, their home transforms into a battleground of mounting plastic.

Director: Kelly Sarri
Writer: Mata Kourti
Producers: Christine Tsakmaka, Antonis Korkontzilas, Kelly Sarri, Alexandra Minou

Lili

Nine-year-old Lili, left behind in rural Yunnan with her grandparents, becomes entangled in a quiet, yet horrific incident. In the shadow of unspeakable darkness, her silence echoes louder than the visible wounds of generational trauma.

Directors/Writers: Zhaoguang Luo, Shuhan Liao
Producers: Yingting Huang, Hang Lu