Purin Film Fund Awards $155k To Five Projects In Autumn 2026 Funding Round

Bangkok-based Purin Film Fund has revealed the five projects that will receive a total of $155,000 through its autumn 2026 funding round.
 
Four fiction features will receive production grants of $30,000 each: Pray To The Thunder, from Malaysia’s Ananth Subramaniam; The Void Is Immense In Idle Hours, from the Philippines’ Sam Manacsa; Watch It Burn, from Indonesia’s Makbul Mubarak, and Heaven In A Wildflower from Vietnam’s Thien An Pham.
 
Thien An Pham previously directed Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023), which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes Film Festival and the grand prize at Tokyo Filmex, while Mubarak’s credits include Autobiography (2022), which won the FIPRESCI prize in Venice and swept multiple other prizes.
 
The fifth project, Thai documentary Up To The Buffalo from Sopawan Boonnimitra and Peerachai Kerdsint, will receive a $35,000 post-production grant.
 
“This Fall 2026 session was especially competitive as many highly-anticipated debut and follow-up projects were submitted by filmmakers with strong festival backgrounds,” said Purin co-director Aditya Assarat. “Having benefited from refinement at previous labs and workshops also positioned projects to be ready for funding.”
 
Two of the four fiction directors are making their first features after short films that screened at major festivals. Subramaniam’s Bleat! was the first Malaysian short film selected for Cannes Critics’ Week and won the Queer Palm for best short in 2025.
 
Manacsa’s short Cross My Heart And Hope To Die played in Venice’s Orizzonti short film competition in 2023. Both are developing their features at the Cannes Résidence in Paris.
 
Purin Film Fund is a non-profit organisation run by filmmakers Anocha Suwichakornpong and Aditya Assarat. The Spring 2027 call for entries opens on February 1, 2027.

PURIN FILM FUND AUTUMN 2026:

PRODUCTION GRANTS:

[$30,000 for fiction films, $15,000 for documentaries]

Pray To The Thunder (Malaysia)
Director: Ananth Subramaniam
Producer: Mun Bel Chu
Production Company: Sixtymac Pictures
Synopsis: A Tamil punk rocker called Thunder pushes against her traditional community as she tries to blend rebellion with her cultural roots and build a life on her own terms.

The Void Is Immense In Idle Hours (Philippines, Indonesia)
Director: Sam Manacsa
Producer: Chad Cabigon, Carlo Francisco Manatad
Production Company: Next Lives
Synopsis: Two women, Rosemary and Agnes, are left to piece together what remains after a young boy vanishes, living with the not-knowing.

Watch It Burn (Indonesia)
Director: Makbul Mubarak
Producer: Yulia Evina Bhara
Production Company: KawanKawan Media
Synopsis: Determined to keep her son out of harm’s way, a mother gives up the family’s inherited farmland. Over time, the safety she bought him becomes something she has to answer for.

Heaven In A Wildflower (Vietnam, Singapore, France)
Director: Thien An Pham
Producer: Sam Weishi Chua, Van Thi Tran, Xiao Xuan Wong
Production Company: Potocol
Synopsis: Told she has a malignant brain tumour, a single mother heads back to where she is from with her small daughter, and a gentle stranger joins them as she looks for peace.

POST-PRODUCTION GRANTS:

[$50,000 for fiction films, $35,000 for documentaries]

Up To The Buffalo (Thailand)
Director: Sopawan Boonnimitra, Peerachai Kerdsint
Producer: Laksanapon Tarapan, Asamaporn Piriyapokanon
Production Company: Dream Sequenze
Synopsis: Following a wetland as it changes, the film uses buffalo, stories, landscapes and memories as different ways of understanding a place that is disappearing.