Southeast Asian Shorts: Palimpsests

Southeast Asia is a landscape that is continually being re-written. Histories of colonialism, dictatorship and migration linger in the present, akin to a palimpsest, where older inscriptions remain faintly visible beneath the new. The short films in this programme treat memory as layered terrain, sedimented in rivers, embedded in creative practice, refracted through propaganda, or rewritten through personal fantasy.  Together, they reveal Southeast Asia not as a singular history, but as an accumulation of erasures and returns, where the past is neither resolved nor distant, but persistently inscribed onto bodies, landscapes, and images. Films in this Programme Mary, Mary So Contrary (2019, Nelson Yeo, Singapore) Mangosteen (2023, Tulapop Saroenjaroen, Thailand) Sparrow in a Storm (Pipit Dalam Badai, 2023, Van Luber Parensen, Indonesia) A Metamorphosis (အသွင်ပြောင်းလဲမှုတစ်ခု, 2025, Lin Htet Aung, Myanmar) The Key to the Past (2025, Hafiz Rancajale, Otty Widasari, Helmi Yusron, Syarifa Amira, Indonesia)