Oasis of Now

Director: Chia Chee Sum

2023 / 90min / DCP

Chia’s beguiling feature debut centers on Hanh (Ta Thi Diu), an undocumented Vietnamese woman living in Kuala Lumpur, scraping by on odd jobs and the emotional sustenance that comes from brief encounters with her daughter, Ting Ting (Yeow Ee Aster), who is being raised by a Malaysian family under an uncertain arrangement. A film of fragments, measured and precise in what it chooses to show and not to show; Chia is evidently more interested in the textures of quotidian life than in high dramatics, but for all this, his Oasis of Now builds a formidable cumulative emotional impact.

Distributor: Diversion

Part of Currents of Southeast Asian Cinema