Ain’t I A Woman?

On Women's Empowerment

Women’s bodies and voices have long been sites of struggle, contested, and controlled, yet continually resisting. This forum listens to stories that challenge patriarchy and affirm women’s place at the center of shaping just and equal futures.

Schedule

Short Films

Primetime Mother

By Sonny Calvento

Fiction | 2023 | 15 mins | Philippines

LOGLINE

The audition process for an exploitative game show becomes the latest test of a long-suffering mother’s fortitude and tenacity.

Lemongrass Girl

By Pom Bunsermvicha

Fiction | 2021 | 18 mins | Thailand

LOGLINE

According to Thai superstition, a virgin can ward off rain by planting lemongrass upside-down underneath an open sky. This belief remains prevalent to this day. As clouds begin to gather, Piano, the young production manager on a film set, is tasked to carry out this tradition. As her fellow female co-workers shy away from the duty, Piano is left with no choice but to take on the burden of becoming the lemongrass girl.

Sweet, Salty

By Duong Dieu Linh

Fiction | 2019 | 13 mins | Vietnam

LOGLINE

Ha, who is 40 and pregnant, decides to confront her husband’s secret lover but the showdown leads to a sticky situation that leaves her with a bittersweet realization.

Kiyaw

By Jericho Jeriel

Fiction | 2024 | 11 mins | Philippines

LOGLINE

On the blood-stained ruins of a seedy 1945 Manila. Horrors unfold in the eyes of a mother from a farming village after being enslaved to satisfy the Japanese Soldiers’ fetish for the interplay of sex and violence. Her daring Iron Will led her to fight and resist in order to survive.

Champ Green

By Clyde Gamale

Fiction | 2025 | 20 mins | Philippines

LOGLINE

In a small farming town, a graduating high school girl struggles to convince her distrustful father to allow her to continue her studies in college after her older sister gets pregnant while being sent to the same university.

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Other films we are screening

Delikado

by Karl Malakunas

DELIKADO follows environmental defenders Bobby and Tata of the Palawan NGO Network Inc and former El Nido mayor Nieves. They risk their lives in David versus Goliath-style struggles, stopping politicians and businessmen from destroying the Philippines’ “last ecological frontier”.

The Fires We Inherit | On Labor

Workers have long borne the weight of exploitation, precarity, and inequality. From factory floors to picket lines, their struggles blaze a path toward dignity and rights. This forum reflects on labor’s unfinished battles and the collective fires we must carry forward.

Aswang

by Alyx Arumpac

When Rodrigo Duterte is voted president of the Philippines, he sets in motion a machinery of death to execute suspected drug peddlers, users, and small-time criminals. Aswang follows people whose fates entwine with the growing violence during two years of killings in Manila.

Tipping the Scales

Southeast Asian Short Films Exhibition and Discussion

You are invited to Tipping the Scales and discover Southeast Asia through its cinema and find in its stories echoes of our own.