The Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) has presented four works in progress at this year’s Marché du Film, as part of the Goes to Cannes strand. The showcase, HAF Goes to Cannes, unspooled on 16 May, from 16:15-18:05, at Palais K in the Palais des Festivals and was open to Marché du Film badge holders.

HKIFF Industry offers filmmakers a broad range of services and international gateways, covering project development through the Film Lab, production and post-production support through HAF, work-in-progress showcases on international platforms such as HAF Goes to Cannes, and the career planning of completed films through the HKIFF Collection. The organisation also engages in co-production with third parties, positioning itself as a full-chain platform for Asian cinema.

The four projects selected for HAF Goes to Cannes reflect the forum’s regional scope, bringing together titles from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore and beyond. The selection moves between comedy-drama, political disappearance, rural friendship and animated fantasy, with an emphasis on memory, family, displacement and renewal.

Good Trip – Norris Wong Yee-lam, Wong Hoi (Hong Kong)
Produced by Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting for Tango For Four Production Limited, this 105-minute comedy-drama is spoken in Cantonese and Japanese and was completed earlier in 2026. Shan is asked to pick up a prop while spending time with her father in hospital. Her father insists on driving her, and the pair embark on an unexpected road trip filled with imagination. The project suggests a tender, offbeat father-daughter journey, using fantasy and humour to explore illness, family bonds and the emotional detours that can reshape a relationship.

The Sea Speaks His Name – Yosep Anggi Noen (Indonesia)
Staged by Gita Fara, Budi Setyarso and Leila S Chudori for Pal8 Pictures, this 120-minute, Bahasa Indonesia-language drama was completed earlier in 2026. A young activist’s disappearance leaves his family in limbo between hope, memory and an unending search for truth. The film appears to engage with political absence and private grief, tracing how unresolved violence continues to structure family life long after the person at its centre has vanished.

Will You Still Be My Friend – Lu Po-Shun (Taiwan/Singapore)
Produced by Su Yu-Hao for InLight Film Studio and Verdant Peak Films, this 95-minute drama is spoken in Mandarin, Taiwanese and English, and was completed earlier in 2026. Amid an escalating feud in a rural Taiwanese village, a boy tries to protect his secret friendship with his Singapore-raised best friend, even as adult tensions threaten to tear them apart. The pic looks set to approach communal conflict through a child’s-eye perspective, contrasting the intimacy of friendship with the inherited divisions of the adult world.

The Excreman – On the Road – Brian Tse (Hong Kong)
Directed by Tse, who also produces alongside Samuel Choy for On The Road Studio Limited, this 90-minute, Cantonese-language animation is slated for completion in 2027. Set in a sewer where the Excremen lead a relaxed and stable life, the story follows the community as a terrifying crisis approaches, leaving them with two options: defeat the opponent or seek a new beginning. The project promises a playful animated adventure with an unusual premise, using its underground world to explore collective survival, crisis and reinvention.