The Philippines‘ QCinema Project Market (QPM), the industry wing of QCinema International Film Festival, has unveiled its lineup of 20 selected film projects for its third edition, chosen from 71 submissions across Southeast Asia.
The slate comprises 12 projects from the Philippines and eight from neighboring countries, showcasing what organizers describe as bold voices, distinctive genres, and globally resonant stories.
Several QPM alumni are already making their mark on the international circuit. Malaysian auteur Woo Ming Jin’s “The Fox King” is set to world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival this month, underscoring the market’s role as an incubator for globally competitive works. Alumni also include Dương Diệu Linh’s “Don’t Cry, Butterfly,” winner of the grand prize at Venice Critics’ Week, and Loeloe Hendra’s “Tale of the Land,” which earned the Fipresci Prize at Busan.
“QPM is not just a platform — it’s a bridge,” said QCinema industry head Liza Diño. “By connecting Southeast Asian stories to the wider world, we are giving filmmakers the visibility and access they need to secure funding, partners, and distribution.”
The regional projects span diverse genres and themes. Singapore’s “Penumbra,” directed by Russell Morton and produced by Sophia Sim and Jeremy Chua, follows a man on the run who washes up on a floating fish farm with no means of escape, where he encounters mysterious occupants. From Thailand comes Nontawat Numbenchapol’s “Ray of Light,” a class-divided story set on a present-day film set styled after 1960s glamour, where a puppet-like star actress and an unseen lighting technician form a forbidden bond.
Cambodia’s “Romdoul, the Evening Fragrance,” directed by Lomorpich Rithy, tells the intertwined story of three generations of Cambodian women in a country still haunted by war and silence. Singapore’s 11th-century period fantasy “Strange Root,” directed by Lam Li Shuen and Mark Chua, features a yam-born demigod cast aside when a shipwrecked beast reawakens islanders’ lost desires. Malaysia’s “The Willing,” from director Joon Goh, follows an Indonesian migrant teen forced into underground fights and a schoolgirl trapped by her volatile mother who find sanctuary in each other.
Thailand’s “Ghost of the Currents,” directed by Patiparn Boontarig, centers on a man returning to his Mekong riverside village after a devastating flood, where villagers blame a vengeful River Ghost for the disaster. Vietnam’s “The River Knows Our Names,” directed by Mai Huyền Chi, explores life on the undocumented floating homes of the Mekong through a little girl’s birthday wish. Myanmar’s “When the World is Paused,” from director Han Thit Htoo Aung, spans from 2019 to 2025 as Than Sin falls into a coma before confessing his feelings to Nyein and must find her upon waking.
The Philippine slate showcases the country’s filmmaking diversity. Glenn Barit’s “Luzonensis and Floresiensis” presents two prehistoric hominids from the Philippines and Indonesia meeting as migrant workers in the land of colonizers. Jaime Pacena II’s “Ozzy and Onie” follows two star-crossed lovers in 1996 Manila torn between faith, family, and a collapsing system. Carl Joseph E. Papa’s “Sentinel” connects five lives grappling with fears and loyalties as a student newspaper article threatens to expose dark school secrets.
Jopy Arnaldo’s “KomiXXX” pairs two Filipinos on break from their Japanese film — an aspiring director and a “sexy” actress wanting to star in “serious” films — who come together to make an erotic comic. Sam Manacsa’s “The Void is Immense in Idle Hours” follows 19-year-old Rosemary, the only witness to a young boy’s disappearance, as she’s drawn into the search by the child’s desperate mother Agnes.
Tyrone Acierto’s “What’s Left Of Us” presents a couple and their chronically ill daughter fighting to stay sane in a collapsed world consumed by a dementia-like plague. Dominic Bekaert’s “Daddy Cool” unfolds during martial law in Manila’s disco era as a career woman finds herself in a tangle of love and jealousy with her female boss and their shared gigolo. Dodo Dayao’s “Dear Wormwood” disrupts the quiet lives of four mountain-dwelling women of faith with the arrival of a time-traveling ghost bringing the world to an end.
