18/05/2026

LYFE MONDAY | MAY 18, 2026

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Making Malaysia proud at Cannes o Filmmaker Ananth Subramaniam continues to cement place as one of Southeast Asia’s rising directorial voices R ISING Malaysian filmmaker Ananth Subramaniam is continuing his international momentum with his latest

short film Holy Crowd , which premiered last Friday at the 65th edition of Critics’ Week alongside the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Co-directed with Indonesian filmmaker Reza Fahriyansyah, the 16-minute Indonesian-French co production is part of the Next Step Studio initiative, The initiative is a regional programme that helps to bring together emerging Southeast Asian filmmakers through cross-border collaborations. This year’s edition features four short films produced in Indonesia under a shared creative framework. Holy Crowd follows a woman who mysteriously rises from the dead during her own funeral before becoming the centre of a growing wave of devotion after performing miraculous healings. As crowds of believers and opportunists gather around her, the line between faith and manipulation begins to unravel. Ananth first gained international attention with Bleat! , which became the first Malaysian short film Only five of the 22 films vying for the prestigious Palme d’Or top prize are directed by women, compared with seven out of 22 last year. Feminist collective 50/50 has accused organisers of “feminism washing” by using icons of female empowerment Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon playing Thelma and Louise in the 1991 film for publicity purposes. “There is absolutely no point at which we’re choosing Geena Davis or Susan Sarandon or Ridley Scott’s film for the poster in order to supposedly give ourselves a feminist image,” Cannes boss Thierry Fremaux told reporters. The 50/50 collective, which advocates for equality in the film industry signed a charter with the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. “At no point does this charter mention parity in selection. Under no circumstances should there be a quota policy,” Fremaux added while insisting the juries and the Cannes governing body were gender equal. “If we are hesitating between two films... and that hesitation is between a film by a male director and a film by a female director, we will choose the film by the female director,” he added. This year, women directors account for 34% of all directors of feature films picked for the official programme in Cannes, organisers said.

Ananth has previously gained international attention with Bleat!

selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025. The project is backed by a regional and international producing network led by Indonesian producers Yulia Evina Bhara and Amerta Kusuma of KawanKawan Media, alongside veteran French producer Dominique Welinski, who also created and curates the Next

Indonesian actress Prilly Latuconsina (left) plays a girl who rises from the dead, wearing a legitimate shroud wrap.

several awards at international project markets, including the Bucheon Award at Bifan NAFF Project Market, the Seapitch Award at Bangkok BAFF Seapitch and the Southeast Asian Co-Production Prize at the QCinema Project Market in the Philippines.

Prize at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Beyond Holy Crowd , the filmmaker is also developing his first international co-production feature Pray to the Thunder with Sixtymac Pictures. The project has already secured

Step Studio initiative. The film later screened at more than 30 festivals worldwide, including the prestigious Singapore International Film Festival, SXSW and Museum of Modern Art’s New Directors New Films programme, while also winning the Youth Jury

Demi Moore calls fighting AI in movie industry pointless

Women conspicuously absent from film festival THE Cannes Film Festival head recently defended making another male-dominated selection in a year when the movie Thelma and Louise features on the official poster. The proportion rises to 38% when short films are included.

explained Fremaux, who has been running Cannes for more than 20 years. France’s influential newspaper Le Monde examined Cannes’ record on promoting women directors with an article on Monday headlined: “Women on the poster, but still on the sidelines.” Only three women have won the top Palme d’Or prize for best film in the 79-year history of Cannes, most recently French director Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall in 2023. – AFP

“Today we’re seeing more and more women directors in upcoming cinema, so they are gradually making their way into the competition. The figures show things are moving forward, it’s slow, it’s not enough. We need a more feminine cinema so that, as in literature and in music, the issue of seeing the world from a female perspective, a woman’s sensibility, is more present in the world of film,”

DEMI Moore urged the film industry to find ways to work with and protect itself from artificial intelligence (AI) instead of fighting a losing battle against it, ahead of the Cannes Film Festival’s opening ceremony recently. “AI is here. And so to fight it is to, in a sense, to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it is a more valuable path to take,” said Moore. The US actor, who received her first Oscar nomination for body horror The Substance after its Cannes premiere in 2024, is returning to the festival this year as one of nine members of the jury who will hand out the Palme d’Or top prize on May 23. “Are we doing enough to protect ourselves? I don’t know. And so my inclination would be to say probably not,” added Moore, speaking to journalists. The festival does not allow generative AI in competition but the conversation about the technology’s role in filmmaking has been a dominant theme at the festival that positions itself as a gatekeeper of what qualifies as cinema. Park Chan-wook, the first Korean filmmaker to lead the jury, reflected on how Korea has become a cinema industry powerhouse since he brought his thriller Oldboy to Cannes in 2004. “Korea is no longer at the outskirts of the global cinematic industry. The reason behind it isn’t only because

Korean film did very well and made it to the centre of the industry. It’s because the centre of the global film industry itself has expanded,” he said, speaking through a translator. That made it possible for him to be named jury president, said Park, adding he promised not to be biased towards the Korean entry, Na Hong jin’s Hope . Comparing the 22 competition films and ranking them in first, second and third place might feel like a “meaningless” act, he said. “But that’s also where the value of that lies because it’s an opportunity to tell everyone and to beg everyone to please watch these films.” – Reuters Moore is serving on the Cannes jury. – REUTERSPIC

Fremaux gestures as he speaks in front of the official poster featuring actors Davis and Sarandon. – REUTERSPIC