Hola everyone! This is my first-ever blog post anywhere, so please do bear with me. I'm the Southeast Asia programmer here at TIFF, and this year I'm incredibly excited about the lineup from my region, which I believe is the strongest in years. Representing five different territories, they consist of whited-knuckled crime thrillers (Soi Cheang's breathtaking ACCIDENT), sensuous tales of love and infidelity (Bui Thac Chuyen's ADRIFT and Pen-ek Ratanaruang's NYMPH), energetic, heart-tugging teen romance (Mike Sandejas' IF I KNEW WHAT YOU SAID), raucously entertaining omnibus (SAWASDEE BANGKOK), coming-of-age crime noir (Ho Yuhang's AT THE END OF DAYBREAK) and beautiful formalist films (Raya Martin's INDEPENDENCIA and Chris Chong's KARAOKE).

Here are the talents who are slated to attend this year:

ACCIDENT (Hong Kong) - Soi Cheang (director)

ADRIFT (Vietnam) - Bui Thac Chuyen (director), Do Thi Hai Yen (actress from THE QUIET AMERICAN), Pham Linh Dan (actress from MR. NOBODY, THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED, INDOCHINE), Dang Tat Binh (producer)

AT THE END OF DAYBREAK (Malaysia) - Ho Yuhang (director), Lorna Tee (producer) 

NYMPH (Thailand) - Pen-ek Ratanaruang (director)

IF I KNEW WHAT YOU SAID (The Philippines) - Mike Sandejas (director), Romalito Mallari (actor), Zoe Sandejas (actress) 

INDEPENDENCIA (The Philippines) - Raya Martin (director) 

KARAOKE (Malaysia) - Chris Chong (director) 

SAWASDEE BANGKOK (Thailand) - Kongdej Jaturanrasamee (director), Pen-ek Ratanaruang (director)

I'll be talking about each film in more detail in the future. Stay tuned, and hope to see you at the screenings!

Cheers, Raymond