No Borders x Nowness Asia: Stories Of Resilience and Rebellion

Stories traversing the spheres of motherhood, matriarchy, fierceness, otherness, and strength.

Heads Above Water (2023) by Dhaka and London based filmmaker Afra Nuarey follows the lives of three women – Mita, Farzana, and Munni – in the hijra community in Bangladesh. This is a story of they place themselves in the world, how they grieve, how they overcome, how they love, and how they dream.

"A politics of identity comes into play when these individuals build a semblance of aggression and secrecy to comply with their reality.” -Afra Nuarey

Watch the film here.

Yai Nin (2022) by Thai-american filmmaker Champ Ensminger is a documentary short on his grandmother, Ninlawan Pinyo, or ‘Yai Nin’. Yai Nin is an entrepreneur of a sausage factory and a family matriarch. This is a story of maternal strength and hardship.

Watch the film here.

Umbilical (2019) by Danski Tang follows a beautiful and heartbreaking conversation between the filmmaker and her mother, where they discuss trauma, love, hardship, and their interconnectedness.

“Our shared desires for intimacy, safety, and normalcy have been constantly at odds with the realities that surround us. Through a conversation as adults, my mother and I learn to understand each other and support one another.” -Danski Tang

Watch the film here.

Inang Maynila (2021) by James J. Robinson is a story of a Catholic schoolgirl living under martial law in the Philippines. The film mirrors the early life of the director’s mother.

“This film became a meditation on an entire country trying to define its independence under political turmoil, and a generation rebelling against the strict rule they were governed under by their parents, nuns, and politicians.” -James J. Robinson

Watch the film here.