Hong Kong’s Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) has unveiled the first 17 in-development projects selected for its 24th edition, offering an early snapshot of the stories and talent set to converge at one of Asia’s most closely watched film financing markets.
The initial lineup spans a wide range of genres, from comedy and fantasy to suspense and romance, and reflects the forum’s long-standing emphasis on pairing emerging directors with established industry mentors. Among the prominent filmmakers attached to the selected projects as producers are Hong Kong auteur Stanley Kwan, Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen and Japanese industry veteran Shiina Yasushi, the longtime head of Tokyo’s TIFFCOM market.
As usual, the projects — currently in scriptwriting and financing stages — will be showcased as part of the HKIFF Industry Project Market, held during Hong Kong’s Filmart content market, running March 17–19.
According to organizers, HAF24 received 414 submissions from 38 countries and regions, with Asian projects accounting for 82 percent of the total. Submissions came from across East, Southeast and South Asia, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mainland China, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
The selected projects underscore the forum’s increasingly transnational scope, with many titles crossing borders in both subject matter and production structure. Several projects explore identity, migration and generational change, while others lean into surrealism, fantasy and dark comedy.
HKIFFS said additional in-development projects — including titles focused on genre cinema and animation — will be announced in the coming weeks.
2026 HAF In-Development Projects (So far)
131
Director: Sasha Chuk
Producer: Stanley Kwan.
A drama revolving around two masseuses and a construction worker as they reshape their futures while moving between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
38.83
Director: Vincci Cheuk
Producer: Koga Shunsuke.
An intergenerational comedy about a 38-year-old woman’s unexpected connection with her 83-year-old grandmother during an unavoidable trip.
A Drop in the Sea
Director: Xiao Baer
Producer: Zhang Fan.
An entrepreneurial Chinese woman travels to Algeria for her brother’s Janazah, uncovering an unknown chapter of his life.
Fishers of Men
Director: Sanju Surendran
Producers: Pramod Sankar, Rajeev Ravi and Kiran Kesav.
A Malayalam absurdist parable about an Indian vegetarian banker whose life is transformed by an inexplicable obsession with fish.
Forgetting She Is She
Director: Guo Yu-tian
Producer: Chan Hing-kai.
A story of conflicted identities and twisted love, in which a writer mistakes her stalker for a long-lost sibling, reopening a buried murder case.
Funeral Flowers
Directors: Liza Diño, Ice Seguerra
Producer: Krisma Fajardo.
Set entirely during the wake of a political patriarch, the film follows his daughter as she confronts estranged siblings and mistresses amid public spectacle.
Have a Good Trip
Director: Xu Jianming
Producer: Bi Guangming.
Seven strange tales intersect in a small town populated by eerie figures, including a reclusive doctor and a man who claims ants live in his ears.
Heading South
Director: Yuan Yuan
Producer: Wang Jing.
A coming-of-age story centered on a 13-year-old Mongolian girl torn between traditional roots and her fascination with K-pop dance and city life.
Life Is Yours
Director: Emma Kawawada
Producers: Takahashi Naoya and Eiko Mizuno-Gray.
An elderly cleaner plots revenge to reclaim land stolen from her at a ski resort in Niseko.
Mama Mia Let Me Go!
Director: Cheung Wai-yu
Producer: Peter Yam.
A lively comedy-drama about a young woman who arranges for her mother to meet a new beau in hopes of helping her escape a stifling home life.
My Phantom
Director: Story Chen Jianying
Producer: Li Xiaoyuan.
A dreamlike journey through Kyoto in which a Chinese writer encounters a man who resembles her late fiancé, lost on their wedding day.
Somewhere in the South
Director: Tan Ce Ding
Producer: Anthony Chen
An aimless young man becomes entangled in a local political campaign during a by-election in a small Malaysian town.
Stuck Like Babies (Zholdogu Bala)
Director: Dastan Zhapar Ryskeldi
Producers: Veronica Rhyme, Fernanda Renno and Florence Stern.
A comedy-drama about a Kyrgyz commander and a Tajik doctor who discover a baby of unknown nationality at a tense border crossing.
The Blue Breaks
Director: Uchiyama Takuya
Producer: Satoh Naomi.
Based on a novel by Ryohei Machiya, the film follows a Japanese drifter born through sperm donation as he reconnects with his past.
The Flower Seller
Director: Emetjan Memet
Producers: Wang Hongwei and Derek Zhang.
Set in Xinjiang, the film explores the inner life of a depressed man whose encounters with a flower seller rekindle his will to live.
The Funeral March
Director: Fujita Naoya
Producer: Shiina Yasushi.
A reclusive woman steals her mother’s corpse and journeys across snowy Hokkaido to fulfill a burial promise.
Vulnerable Observer
Director: Jiang Xiaoxuan
Producer: Zhao Ziyang.
An anthropologist travels to a Mongolian region for academic research, only to question the motives of her initially friendly local guide.
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