Purin Film Fund Spring 2026: Funding News
Bangkok-based Purin Film Fund has selected six projects to receive funding in its Spring 2026 session, including two fiction and two documentary projects for production support, and two documentary projects for post-production support. In total, the fund is handing out grants of $160,000 in this funding round.
Purin co-director Aditya Asarat said: “This Spring 2026 session we once again broke the record for submission numbers. While it’s encouraging that independent films continue to be made in the region, the number of funding organisations remains the same, which makes the environment increasingly competitive. Projects must really stand out from the crowd.”
Among the projects receiving production support, Dear Son An from Vietnam’s Kim Quy Bui and Little Phnom Penh from Cambodia’s Chhiengkea Ieng are both moving fiction works written from the filmmakers’ family experiences.
Documentaries The People Outside from the Philippines’ Jewel Maranan and Sisters In War from Myanmar’s Thida Lay both chronicle the lives of everyday citizens involved in armed resistance. Finally, Araro Ariraro from Malaysia’s Gogularaajan Rajendran and Once, Here from the Philippines’ Pabelle Manikan both recall, in different ways, the lives of labouring communities from earlier times that no longer exist today.
Launched in 2017 under the Purin Foundation, the Purin Film Fund is a non-profit film fund that supports independent cinema in Southeast Asia. The fund is managed by filmmakers Anocha Suwichakornpong and Aditya Assarat. The call for entries for the autumn 2026 session opens on August 1, 2026.
PRODUCTION GRANTS:
[$30,000 for fiction films, $15,000 for documentaries]
Dear Son An (Vietnam)
Director: Kim Quy Bui
Producer: Le Diem Ha, Mai Nguyen Zeimet
Production Company: A.T Sound Studio
Synopsis: As a single mother with cancer prepares for her absence, her nine-year old son drifts between faith and fantasy, facing adoption and losing her.
Little Phnom Penh (Cambodia, US, France)
Director: Chheangkea Ieng,
Producer: Daniel Mattes
Production Company: Anti-Archive
Synopsis: From post-Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California, a Cambodian woman longs for home and belonging as her first love resurfaces over time.
Once, Here [Working Title] (Philippines)
Director: Pabelle Manikan
Producer: Pabelle Manikan, Kristoffer Brugada
Production Company: Papaya Film Production
Synopsis: A fisherman and his wife cling to each other and their memories after foreign vessels take over the waters that once sustained them.
Sisters In War (Myanmar, Australia)
Director: Thida Lay
Producer: Thida Lay, Maya Newell
Production Company: Lavender Production
Synopsis: Two brave sisters turn away from their family duty as daughters to join the armed fight against the military junta.
POST-PRODUCTION GRANTS:
[$50,000 for fiction films, $35,000 for documentaries]
Araro Ariraro (Malaysia)
Director: Gogularaajan Rajendran
Producer: Kumanavannan Rajendran, Elizabeth Wijaya
Production Company: Om Sakthi Films
Synopsis: Tamil folk songs from colonial Malayan plantations open a rare window for a family to remember and reimagine their faceless, voiceless ancestors.
The People Outside (Philippines)
Director: Jewel Maranan
Producer: Jewel Maranan
Production Company: Cinema is Incomplete
Synopsis: A filmmaker journeys into the Pacific-side mountain ranges of rural Philippines in search of the unseen currents that sustain a deep-rooted conflict for decades.
