Ky Nam Inn
Leon Le
Vietnam. 2025. 140 min

Ten years after the war, Saigon is still in the midst of reconstruction. Widowed Ky Nam runs a small restaurant in a communal housing complex, where residents share a central courtyard and know every detail of each other’s lives. She has adopted and is raising Su, a French–Vietnamese mixed-race child. One day, Khang, a young man translating Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince into Vietnamese, moves into the unit upstairs. With his privileged background and natural charm, it is only natural that he draws the attention of those around him. Yet from the very first day, Khang finds himself gradually drawn to Ky Nam, who once saved him from a crisis. The highlight of this film, which evokes the tenderness of a romantic watercolor painting, is the late sequence in which the two walk through the streets of Saigon all night, enacting a dreamlike farewell ritual. Carried along by the young man’s narration, the scene leaves their shared story suspended in an eternal present.

Riverstone
Lalith Rathnayake
Sri Lanka. 2025. 120 min

There have been many instances where suspected underworld criminals have been killed while in police custody, ostensibly in shootouts while accompanying officers to show arms caches. It is widely held by the general public that while the rule of law has been severely compromised, the police have, on such occasions, acted arbitrarily and with disregard for due process.
It is not the police nor the particular officers but the particular governments that require such suspects to be eliminated. The police merely execute their wishes. For this, relevant officers are offered the carrot of possible promotions. This film discusses the thoughts and concerns of three officers as they travel together to a destination marked for the assassination of a suspect with whom they have no quarrel whatsoever.