Six independent film projects from across Southeast Asia will share $160,000 in production costs and post-production support from Bangkok-based nonprofit Pudding Film Fund, announced for the spring 2026 session.
Four projects received production grants. On the fiction side, Dear Son An, directed by Kim Quy Bui and produced by Le Diem Ha and Mai Nguyen Zeitmet for Vietnam’s AT Sound Studio, centers on a 9-year-old boy who wanders between faith and fantasy as his single parent, who has cancer, prepares to leave home. Directed by Chenkea Ien and produced by Daniel Matthes for Anti-Archive, Little Phnom Penh depicts a Cambodian woman’s yearning for home and belonging as her first love is revived through time, from post-Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California. Fiction production grants are valued at $30,000 each.
The recipient of two documentary production grants was Sisters in War, directed by Thida Ray and produced by Thida Ray and Maya Newell for Myanmar-Australia collective Lavender Productions. The film follows two sisters who put aside their roles as dutiful daughters to join the fight against the country’s military regime. And “Once, Here,” directed by Pavel Manican and produced by Manican and Christopher Brugada for the Philippines’ Papaya Film Productions, is about a fisherman, his wife, and their memories as they cling to each other after foreign ships take over the waters that once supported them. Each documentary production grant is $15,000.
Two documentary projects have secured post-production support. Directed by Gugurahajan Rajendran and produced by Kumanavanan Rajendran and Elizabeth Wijaya for Malaysia’s Om Sakthi Films, “Alalo Arilalo” uses a Tamil folk song that originated on the plantations of colonial Malaya as a window through which families remember and reimagine their faceless and voiceless ancestors. Directed and produced by Jewel Maranan for Philippine Cinema Unfinished, “The People Outside” follows a filmmaker who heads to the Pacific mountains of rural Philippines in search of the forces behind a deep-seated conflict that has been going on for decades. Post-production documentary grants are $35,000 each.
“This Spring 2026 session, we have once again broken records for the number of submissions. It is encouraging that independent films continue to be produced in the region, but the number of funding bodies remains the same, so the competitive environment has become increasingly competitive. Projects have to really stand out from the crowd,” said co-director Aditya Asarath.
Established in 2017 under the Pring Foundation and managed by filmmaker Anocha Swichakornpong and Asarath, the fund focuses on independent films from across Southeast Asia, spanning production, exhibition and education. Applications for the Fall 2026 session will open on August 1st.
