THY WOMB (Sinapupunan)

Director Brillante Mendoza, 106MIN, TBA
MON 21 JAN 2013

Perth International Arts Festival recommends age 15+

Earning multiple major awards to date and a four-minute standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival, this intimate and poignant story by Filipino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza, the first and only Filipino to have won at Cannes Film Festival (Kinatay), gracefully, and colourfully, unfolds in the breathtakingly beautiful floating sea villages in the Philippines.

Midwife Shaleha (played by Filipino superstar Nora Aunor) and her loving husband Bangas-An are an aging, childless couple living in a tiny, remote island community of Muslim sea gypsy people. When Bangas-An yearns for a family, infertile Shaleha makes the ultimate sacrifice to give her husband a child of his own.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS, ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING, 2012 SIXTH ANNUAL ASIA PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS
LA NAVICELLA VENEZIA CINEMA AWARD, NAZARENO TADDEI - SPECIAL MENTION AWARD, VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2012

The film is silent in its discussion of its narrative yet it explodes inside you - in your heart and mind ...Thy Womb is one of the best Filipino films a Filipino could watch on the big screen in his lifetime. THE PHILIPPINE STAR

 THE MIRROR NEVER LIES (Laut Bercermin)

Director Kamila Andini 100min, TBA
MON 28 JAN 2013
 In Indonesian with subtitles

Winner of Best Children’s Feature Film at the 2012 Sixth Annual Asia Pacific Awards, this beautiful debut feature film by Kamila Andini combines a gentle coming-of-age story with a strong ecological message celebrating the Bajo tribe’s (a nomadic fishing community of the Wakatobi Islands) sustainable way of life.

On a small island inhabited by members of the Bajo tribe, twelve-year-old Pakis longs for a father lost at sea. She treasures the mirror he gave her, desperately wishing that (according to Bajo tribal folklore) he will return and appear reflected in it.

BEST CHILDREN’S FEATURE FILM, 2012 SIXTH ANNUAL ASIA PACIFIC AWARDS

Lyrically evokes a way of life organically coexisting with the ocean. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER