CENCAL FIN LIT
FILM FESTIVAL

CHINA

A photography series by Emma Sywyj

Photograph Details

Date Taken

December 7, 2009

Country of Origin

United Kingdom

Camera

Nikon FM3A Black 35mm SLR

Lens

50mm

ISO / Film

400

About the Series

This photography series is called China — created during my travels there. My father’s family live in Malaysia and are Malaysian Chinese, but several generations before me they came from China. I became interested in Chinese contemporary art and culture and travelled around the country for a month and a half. I learnt about Chinese art and cuisine and connected with my family’s roots — spending time in Beijing, Nanjing, and out in the countryside. I experienced city life and stayed in an ancient inn far from the cities. This series marks my journey from outsider to insider, photographing the subjects I connected with and the moments that stood out to me.

About the Artist

Emma Sywyj has been an artist for 14 years. She studied photography at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL in London, where she earned a BA Honours in Photography and a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design. Her work has been exhibited internationally — in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Athens, and Budapest — as well as nationally across the UK and London, where she currently lives and works. Her photography has also been published in independent art magazines.

Emma’s work captures life at its most vibrant and exciting — encouraging viewers to see the intricacies and beauty beyond the everyday. Her images celebrate culture in all its varied forms, photographing Europe and Asia as she experiences them, while developing her own cultural identity through the lens.

The full series contains additional photographs available at emmasywyj.com.

PAANI

“Paani” — Water in Hindi

Setting

Rural Rajasthan, India · The Thar Desert

About the Film

Set in rural Rajasthan, India, in the Thar Desert, Paani (“Water” in Hindi) is a documentary about desert life shaped by water scarcity. The film captures families whose daily lives revolve around securing water in the harsh desert climate.

They find hope when engineers drill nearly 500 feet below the surface to reach drinkable groundwater — transforming the village’s future. Paani is a story of a community’s resilience and the value of a single drop.

On location: the commencement of Project Oasis — the well-drilling effort featured in the film.

BOLD GOLD

A LEGO stop-motion fable about foundations, hoarded gold, and the courage to spend it.

Director Biography

Richard Power Hoffmann directs films that inspire people to take better care of themselves, each other, and the planet. He believes movies are magic — and can shine a light into the darkness.

Rich studied film at New York University and interned for Martin Scorsese before returning to his native Philadelphia. His films have won international awards including Sapporo Short Fest Best Documentary and DV Film Festival’s Best Feature, and have been selected for touring festivals such as Mountainfilm, WWF India, Slow Food Italy, and Byron Bay Australia. His work has screened on Netflix, the Sundance Channel, and Taiwanese public television, and has had theatrical IMAX runs at over two dozen museums — including the Franklin Institute, the Kuwait Science Center, and the Smithsonian.

He has guest-lectured at The New School, Villanova, Temple, and Drexel, and taught filmmaking at three local high schools. Many of his films showcase his signature time-lapse, shutter-burst, still-image technique — including Fridays at the Farm, Prayer for Philadelphia, and Watermelon Magic. Rich lives in Media, PA with his high-school sweetheart, their three children, and a goofy dog.

Director’s Statement

“Foundations play a critical role in addressing problems that governments can’t or won’t solve — yet so many reserve most of their financial resources to grow their stockpiles, or for some ambiguous future ‘rainy day.’ In my life, I can’t think of a time when the world felt more ‘on fire’ than it does right now. The purpose of our film is to urge foundations to take a close look at their resources and commit to making a bigger, bolder difference in the causes they support.”

“We chose LEGO bricks because we felt this message might land better in stop-motion. The dragon and his hoard of gold represent all the untapped funds waiting to be put to good use by our cast of LEGO board members. We worked with much of the same team behind our previous foundation-focused film, Dollars that Make Sense — including Monica Moran on narration and Pete Tramo & Tom Hamilton on score. The dragon breaks out of his lair to put out a forest fire — and I hope the handmade quality of it all might just convince a few real-world board members to unlock more of their foundation’s funds and make positive change in the world.”

Untours Foundation — the kind of bold, generous foundation work Bold Gold sets out to celebrate.

BACK SEAT

An original short screenplay by Ferenc Berki

“He didn’t pull the trigger. He just didn’t stop it.”

Synopsis

John is stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, desperate to escape the city — and something far worse. Irritated and unraveling, he clashes with the calm, silent taxi driver. When the driver finally prompts him to speak, John begins recounting the night before.

Through fragmented memories and intrusive auditory hallucinations — a ringing phone, a woman’s desperate “please” — we learn about Kathreen, the woman he loves. She had been unstable, terrified, begging for help. John insists he was trying to calm her, to help her rest. But his version of events begins to crack.

As the taxi moves through an increasingly quiet city, the driver asks simple but piercing questions. John’s narrative slowly shifts — from control, to confusion, to denial, and finally to realization. Kathreen was injured. There was a phone. There was time.

And John did nothing.

The taxi stops. Not at the airport — but at a police station. John doesn’t resist. For the first time, he sees clearly. He steps out and walks inside.

Writer’s Statement

BACK SEAT was born from a simple but unsettling idea: what if the most defining moment of a person’s life is not what they did — but what they failed to do?

I was interested in exploring guilt not as an immediate reaction, but as a slow, internal unraveling. The story focuses on a man who believes he was trying to help, yet gradually realizes that his inaction carried irreversible consequences. This ambiguity was essential to me. I didn’t want a clear villain, but a character whose self-justification feels disturbingly human.

The confined space of the taxi allowed the narrative to remain intimate and pressure-driven, turning a physical journey into a psychological one. Dialogue plays a central role, not as exposition, but as a tool of erosion — each question peeling back another layer of denial.

At its core, BACK SEAT is about responsibility. It asks whether inaction can be as consequential as action, and how long a person can avoid the truth before it demands to be faced.

This is not a story about a crime. It is a story about the moment someone understands they can no longer escape themselves.

About the Writer

Ferenc Berki is a Europe-based writer creating metaphysical sci-fi and atmospheric horror driven by psychological depth and existential themes. His stories explore identity, consciousness, and the fragile boundary between reality and the unknown.

Alongside speculative fiction, he writes LGBTQ+ narratives that focus on authentic human connection, transformation, and emotional truth — often blending genre storytelling with intimate character journeys.

With a background in visual art and performance, his writing leans cinematic, immersive, and emotionally intense. He is drawn to bold concepts, haunting imagery, and stories that challenge perception while remaining deeply human.

THE SIBLINGS’ CART

A short film by 마스코트맨 (Mascot Man)

Synopsis

Brothers and sisters who set out to bury their late father in a luxury limousine collide with the wall of reality — a miniature world built to expose the bare face of ours.

Director’s Statement

“I wanted the audience to question not only the characters’ decisions, but also their own.”

The film’s miniature craft is more than a stylistic choice — it is the lens itself. By staging a family’s grief and economic strain inside a hand-built scaled world, the director invites audiences to step back far enough to see the full shape of decisions that, at full size, would feel too close to face.

Press

Featured in Cine21, South Korea’s leading film publication, in coverage of the festival’s honored short films.

Photography: production still from The Siblings’ Cart, courtesy of the filmmaker.

TSHANGYANG

A Love Beyond Dharma · A Bhutanese musical short film

Inspired By

Tshangyang Gyatso — the 6th Dalai Lama, remembered as much for his poetry of the heart as for the throne he was born to.

Synopsis

Tshangyang — A Love Beyond Dharma tells a story inspired by Tshangyang Gyatso, a soul chosen by faith but undone by love. Crowned before he could choose, he lived between sacred duty and a heart that longed to love.

An unconventional Dalai Lama who preferred the candor of a wandering yogi to the silence of an ordained monk, Tshangyang Gyatso left behind love poems and songs that have outlived empires — verses still sung in the high passes of the Himalaya more than three centuries after his death.

This is not a story of rebellion — it is a story of humanity, loneliness, and a love that refused to be silenced.

From the 6th Dalai Lama’s Verse

“If I could meditate upon the dharma
as intensely as I muse on my beloved,
I would certainly attain enlightenment —
surely, in this one lifetime.”
— Tshangyang Gyatso, the lyric tradition the film leans into

About JWF Productions

JWF Productions is a Thimphu-based motion picture house founded in 2021 by Jigme Wangchuk — known creatively as Jigme TG. The studio is part of a quietly resurgent Bhutanese cinema rooted in cultural memory and musical drama, with prior works including Bum Choe, Serotonin, and Nge Zamling 2.

Tshangyang — A Love Beyond Dharma premiered as an official 4K musical film on YouTube on January 1, 2026, starring Jigme TG opposite Dolly Dolkar. By April it had earned Bhutan the festival’s Best Short Film honor.

Audience Reception

“An interesting take in this Bhutanese musical film on poems by the sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso.” — viewer note shared on X

Directed by Jigme TG (Jigme Wangchuk) · Starring Jigme TG & Dolly Dolkar · A JWF Productions film · Thimphu, Bhutan, 2026.