Ābhāsa
2026 · 2m
Directed by Lam Son Nguyen
Genres: drama, experimental, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, surreal, tender
Seeking a ritualised, controlled path inward, a young woman tries to contact her unconscious, which she imagines smooth and matching the beauty she pictures; she discovers instead the raw, wild beauty of her deep, imperfect, multiple self.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Ābhāsa does the thing that actually matters—it takes the tired trope of 'journey inward' and flips it by refusing to prettify what it finds, which is the opposite move most films would make and somehow it works.
Nguyen's surrealist grammar sits comfortably within the lineage of experimental cinema's inward turn, though the execution trades formal rigor for a more intuitive, sensory approach that resists the classical control such films often demand.
The film's entire architecture hinges on one choice: letting the unconscious be genuinely unruly rather than aesthetically composed, and that single commitment to formal honesty transforms what could've been a derivative meditation into something that breathes.