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Ashlyn Chak

A short film depicting an unexpected friendship between a Pakistani tailor and a Hong Kong florist has scooped the top Hong Kong prize at this year’s Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival.
Between the Unsaid, produced by Kaneeta Arshad and directed by Qasim Khan, champions integration and how different communities in the city should work and learn together.
“We see this very commonly in Hong Kong with our parents or someone who comes from outside Hong Kong,” Khan says. “There’s a communication barrier, but they’re still able to bond with the locals without speaking the same language.”
Arshad adds that a Pakistani-made film winning the award felt like “such a personal win” and a true testament to how this city is “a great home for diversity”.
One of the five Hong Kong judges, Oscar-winning filmmaker Ruby Yang, who is also the director of the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre, says: “Even when characters don’t speak the same language, they still make a connection, which is what film and media are about.”
Between the Unsaid was initially 17 minutes long, say Khan and Arshad, who are both on the board of Visionary Bees, an NGO that uses the arts to encourage integration, inclusion, and social and economic mobility. They condensed it to six minutes during post-production, the maximum runtime allowed according to the festival’s “micro film” standards. This allowed them to centre solely on the characters’ emotions and wordless communication.

In 2022, venture capitalist turned philanthropist Lionel Li Xiaobo launched the first Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival to focus on social impact and innovation. Four years on, it has expanded to eight regional finals, from which winners advance to the pan-Asia main round.
This year’s Hong Kong edition is the city’s inaugural event and is primarily supported by the Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy, an organisation working with family businesses.
Entries came from filmmakers, students, community leaders and NGOs, who competed in three categories: best micro film award, best AI film award and best project award.
First-time filmmaker Chen Yimin won best AI film with The Story Hunter, which she wrote and directed. The film, based on the true story of an elderly person regaining her spark after a long period of emotional isolation, was co-created by about a dozen people, including students and elderly community members who provided voices and facial references.

Chen is the founder of Ginger Innovation, a social enterprise dedicated to “ageing education”. Her team delivered the film in two weeks, balancing four days of AI image generation with 10 days of scriptwriting, editing and polishing.
As attention spans shrink and generative AI grows, filmmakers must constantly find ways to engage an ever-changing audience.
Yang says that, as an educator, she has seen first-hand how “attention spans are getting shorter”, but while there is “value in seeing a film in a cinema or projected on a big screen”, the film festival is also important in that it is “bringing different stakeholders – funders and filmmakers – into the same room to connect as a community”.
She adds: “It’s important to showcase the work of Hong Kong AI filmmakers and NGOs, whose work is hardly highlighted. Because of consent and access, it’s hard to film in NGOs, so I’m pleased to see elderly people, people with Alzheimer’s and children born with disabilities [on screen].”

Fen Jennifer Lin was also one of the five Hong Kong judges. The director of ArtX Hong Kong, a new arts and technology institute at City University of Hong Kong, says that “AI has become an inevitable topic”.
“As each generation embraces its own technological innovation, AI is totally rewriting industry rules and norms on how to produce a film,” she says. “On one hand, we embrace this change because it’s inevitable, but we don’t embrace it blindly. We have to embrace it with responsibility … and nurture art intuition.”
Lin explains that art intuition means focusing on “what story it tells, how it tells the story and what message is there”.
“Without art intuition, you cannot produce something meaningful,” she says. “We must pay attention so technology doesn’t take away our judgment.
“Lots of things have to be adjusted as technology advances, which is why lawmakers, policymakers, educators and creative professionals have to form an ecosystem to communicate and find solutions. We cannot just turn our backs on technology development.”
The best project category is a slightly less technical award that prioritises the mission’s meaning rather than dissecting the mise-en-scène. Its winner, The Superpower of Little Hands, portrays children living with congenital limb differences in an optimistic way, unlike the doom and gloom some might expect when it comes to children’s disabilities.

Edwina Lai, the founding president of the Hand in Hand Association, which produced the film, is a first-time filmmaker who prioritised “teamwork, clear communication and smooth execution”, she says.
“We spent so much time talking heart-to-heart with our Hand in Hand families, making sure everyone felt safe, heard and aligned with the message. Because of that deep trust, all the families stepped up happily to share their own stories.”
Despite working without generative AI, Lai and her team finished shooting the film in just one day. As the best project award winner, the Hand in Hand Association will receive resources from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Programme on Social Innovation to advance its community initiatives.
The three winning Hong Kong films will advance to the pan-Asia main round and awards ceremony in Manila, the Philippines, on October 25.


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Pakistani-made ‘micro film’ scoops top prize at Asian festival’s Hong Kong final

A still from Between the Unsaid, which won the best micro film award at this year’s Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival regional final for Hong Kong. Photo: Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival

A still from Between the Unsaid. Photo: Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival

A still from The Story Hunter, which won the best AI film award. Photo: Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival

A still from The Story Hunter. Photo: Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival

A still from The Superpower of Little Hands, which won the best project award. Photo: Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival

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Lo hikes on the Patagonian Steppe during the making of Anamnesis II. Photo: Patsy Lo

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A behind-the-scenes shot of the team’s trip to Patagonia for Anamnesis II. Photo: Patsy Lo

Dance artist Hiroki Ichinose stars in Anamnesis II. Photo: Patsy Lo

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Wan Wong makes a lion head (used for lion dances), another of the traditional crafts she keeps alive. Photo: Wan Wong

Goldfish lanterns made by Wong. Photo: Wan Wong

A star fruit lantern made by Wong. Photo: Wan Wong

A butterfly lantern made by Wong. Photo: Wan Wong

Attendees show off their goldfish lanterns at a lantern-making workshop jointly run by Wan Wong and the Hong Kong Design Centre. Photo: Wan Wong

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The event was the first Hong Kong finals of the Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival, whose 2026 edition champions community empowerment


The event was the first Hong Kong finals of the Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival, whose 2026 edition champions community empowerment.


Pakistani-made ‘micro film’ scoops top prize at Asian festival’s Hong Kong final

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The event was the first Hong Kong finals of the Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival, whose 2026 edition champions community empowerment

The event was the first Hong Kong finals of the Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival, whose 2026 edition champions community empowerment