Alternativa Film Awards & Festival 2024 

The Alternativa Film Awards & Festival 2024 proudly presents its official shortlist, showcasing the best of innovative storytelling from across Asia. The Selection Committee undertook an extraordinary task, reviewing over 1000 submissions, twice as many as last year. After careful consideration, 25 exceptional films have been chosen, including 13 full-length and 12 shorts. 

Alternativa Film Awards & Festival 2024: Yogykarta, Indonesia, 22-29.11.2024

These films come from 14 Asian countries and span across 13 different languages, celebrating the region's cultural and linguistic diversity. Indonesia, the host country of AFAF 2024, leads with 5 shortlisted titles. Female-directed films comprise nearly half of the selection, highlighting our commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices and supporting women in film. In addition, of the 13 full-length films, 9 are debut works, in line with the project’s mission to discover and nurture emerging talent.

This year the Alternativa Film Awards & Festival is bringing the shortlisted films closer to the public, offering free screenings and impact discussions for all nominated titles. The initiative aims to engage audiences in meaningful conversations about the themes and issues these works explore, fostering a deeper connection between the films and their viewers. We believe that, while each work stands unique in its approach and style, they all share great impact potential. These stories have the power to inspire, challenge perspectives, and drive positive change, showing that cinema can be a catalyst for transforming society.

Word from the Head of Programming: Natalia Pylaeva, Alternativa Film Awards & Festival

Just one month ahead of the Alternativa Film Awards & Festival, we are thrilled to announce our shortlisted films. Our eyes and hearts were wide open for striking and authentic stories, strong and unforgettable characters. What we looked for in films was their ability to spark emotions and the need to talk about them. We were searching for impactful films that inspire and motivate, making you want to change something after watching them. Eventually, we believe to have selected 25 works that can help make the world a better place as we do trust that this is the ultimate superpower of cinema. And deciding on the shortlist was no easy task for the selection panel of 24 film experts - festival programmers, curators, critics, filmmakers and producers coming from different backgrounds and countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Brunei, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Czechia.

In our shortlist, fiction, documentary, and animated films compete for the Awards together. Quite diverse in style and form, these works cover such topics as women empowerment, gender discrimination, violence and abuse, children’s and teen’s rights, living with disabilities, digital safety, and more. Yet, while dealing with challenging subjects, many of these films don’t fail to bring us some hope. These films are about courage too, about understanding someone or something different, about giving and accepting care and finding a sense of home.

Natalia Pylaeva, Head of Programming, Alternativa Film Awards & Festival