Imagine a place you call home, where familiarity and comfort have slowly become something strange and foreign. This programme brings together snapshots and explorations of this phenomenon to ponder on humanity’s never-ending search for a place of belonging, whether a hometown, a country, or a gathering space.

In Ah Ming’s Macau (1995), filmmaker Albert Chu Iao-ian considers his future as a graduating film student with the impending 1999 handover to China looming over his hometown. Chu combines interviews with documentary footage in this semi-autobiographical work, capturing the malaise of an uncertain fate.

Kavich Neang’s Three Wheels (2015) offers a melancholic glimpse into the lives of an ageing Cambodian couple. Nath, a tuk-tuk driver, tells his wife that he wishes to move out of their house. In their remaining time spent under the same roof, the state of their relationship—and the history behind their marriage—is gradually uncovered.

Meanwhile, Hao Jingban’s Off Takes (2016) weaves discarded footage from her Beijing Ballroom Project (2012–2016) with her personal voiceover as she reflects on her creative process, exploring the lives of Chinese ballroom dancers who were active from the 1950s to the post-Cultural Revolution 1970s and beyond. The film intersperses contemporary and archival dance footage from different times and spaces, from nondescript rooms to spacious halls.