Landscapes
Film offers another way of understanding a place, not only through its history, but
through the lives, relationships, conflicts, and everyday moments that shape it.
This collection brings together films from across Asia that explore how people experience
family, education, inequality, political change, identity, work, and belonging. Rather than
presenting a single portrait of each country, these films offer different ways of seeing the
societies and generations they come from.
KOREA
Parasite
Labor · Inequality · Family
A struggling family enters the world of a wealthy household, exposing the social and physical divides between their lives.
A Taxi Driver
Democracy · Memory · Political Violence
A Seoul taxi driver helps a German journalist document the 1980 Gwangju Uprising,transforming his understanding of the events unfolding around him.
Peppermint Candy
History · Memory · Trauma
Told in reverse chronology, the film traces one man’s tragic life through decades of
South Korea’s political and social upheaval.
CHINA
Better Days
Education · Youth · Pressure
A bullied high school student and a troubled young man form an unlikely bond while
confronting violence and intense academic pressure.
Ascension
Labor · Economy · Aspiration
A documentary examining work, consumption, and aspiration across different levels of
China’s rapidly changing economy.
An Elephant Sitting Still
Isolation · Youth · Despair
Four people struggling with loneliness and hardship search for the possibility of escape
over the course of a single day.
JAPAN
Perfect Days
Work · Solitude · Everyday Life
A Tokyo public restroom cleaner finds meaning and quiet joy in the routines and small encounters of everyday life.
Shoplifters
Family · Poverty · Belonging
A makeshift family survives through petty theft while raising questions about what truly makes people a family.
Our Little Sister
Family · Memory · Healing
Three sisters welcome their teenage half-sister into their home, gradually confronting old wounds and forming a new family bond.
MONGOLIA
The Eagle Huntress
Gender · Tradition · Youth
A young Mongolian girl pursues her ambition to become an eagle hunter within a tradition historically dominated by men.
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
Nomadic Life · Tradition · Family
A young girl from a nomadic family befriends a stray dog while her family navigates the
realities of life in the Mongolian countryside.
Ub Lama
Faith · Youth · Modernity
A young monk navigates faith, family, and the tensions of modern life in contemporary
Mongolia.
TAIWAN
Untold Herstory
White Terror · Women · Political Memory
Women imprisoned during Taiwan’s White Terror struggle to survive political persecution and preserve their dignity.
A City of Sadness
History · Family · Political Memory
One family’s experiences reflect Taiwan’s turbulent transition after Japanese rule and the
violence surrounding the beginning of the White Terror.
Yi Yi (A One and a Two)
Family · Generations · Everyday Life
Three generations of a Taipei family confront love, disappointment, loss, and the quiet
complexity of ordinary life.
SINGAPORE
Shirkers
Youth · Memory · Filmmaking
A filmmaker revisits the mysterious disappearance of footage from a film she made as a teenager, reconstructing a story about creativity, memory, and loss.
Ilo Ilo
Migration · Family · Economic Crisis
During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, a Singaporean family develops an unexpected
relationship with their Filipino domestic worker.
Long Long Time Ago
Nation-Building · Family · Social Change
A family’s journey from kampong life toward modern Singapore unfolds alongside the
country’s early years of independence and rapid transformation.
VIETNAM
The White Silk Dress
War · Women · Family
Against decades of war and hardship, a Vietnamese family’s story unfolds around a
treasured white áo dài passed through generations. The film spans from the end of
French colonial rule through the Vietnam War era.
The Scent of Green Papaya
Domestic Life · Gender · Coming of Age
A young servant girl observes the rhythms, relationships, and quiet transformations of a
household as she grows into adulthood.
Floating Lives
Rural Life · Family · Displacement
A fractured family travels through Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, confronting abandonment,
resentment, and the instability of life on society’s margins. The 2010 film was adapted
from Nguyễn Ngọc Tư’s The Endless Field .
CAMBODIA
First They Killed My Father
Khmer Rouge · Childhood · Survival
Based on Loung Ung’s memoir, the film follows a young girl struggling to survive under
Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime.
The Killing Fields
Khmer Rouge · Journalism · Survival
The friendship between a Cambodian journalist and an American reporter unfolds
against the violence and devastation of the Khmer Rouge era.
A River Changes Course
Environment · Development · Rural Life
A documentary following three Cambodian families whose traditional ways of life are
threatened by deforestation, declining fisheries, debt, and rapid economic development.