Tech Tales: Films about Digital Rights in the Asia-Pacific

EngageMedia Editorial
September 23, 2021
6:00 pm

Read: EngageMedia’s Executive Director Andrew Lowenthal introduces the Tech Tales films

The past two years have proved challenging for digital rights in the Asia-Pacific. The region saw not only a general increase in state surveillance and the stifling of free expression, but also digital rights violations such as internet shutdowns in Myanmar, disinformation and attacks on online activism in the Philippines, and the doxxing of protesters in Indonesia and Thailand.

These violations continue to occur, especially as people increasingly spend time online and the internet is seen as essential to personal and professional lives. Media, in all forms, should play a critical role in raising awareness on these issues. However, there has not been enough visual media that tackles digital rights and security issues particular to the region’s context, especially ones available in regional languages.

To address this, EngageMedia worked with eight filmmakers across the Asia-Pacific to produce short films on the region’s pressing digital rights issues. Their films comprise the Tech Tales film collection that highlights human rights stories in the digital age. These films employ various storytelling forms and tools, from narrative fiction, documentary format to animation. They will also be used for advocacy and training.

The films cover stories on online surveillance in India, Malaysia and Thailand; data privacy and online gender-based violence in Indonesia; massive disinformation campaigns in Myanmar and the Philippines; online freedom of expression in Cambodia and Malaysia; and digital sovereignty in the whole region.

First launched on October 30, 2021, the full film collection is now permanently available to watch on Cinemata, a platform for social and environmental films about the Asia-Pacific. The collection has also been showcased at various community screenings – both online and at physical events – across the region.

If you would like to host a Tech Tales screening, or include the films in festivals or events, reach out to us via the Tech Tales Partners section below.

Tech Tales Film Collection

Black Out

In the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup, the country is faced with state-mandated internet and information blackouts. Hnin, a single mother, and Mon, her daughter and an anti-coup protester, are among those who can no longer access the internet at home. In their pursuit of news on what is happening on the ground, they find only fabricated stories and unreliable information.

My Clouded Mind

Naura, 19, ended her long-distance relationship after her boyfriend reveals the other side of him that leads to the leaking of compromising images of her. Today, she grapples with the trauma of that incident, and fights to find more reasons to face a new day.

Peer to Peer

What can we learn from poets and coders who engineered a parallel internet that, by 1992, had email servers running in 72 countries? Peer to Peer’ is a deep-dive into data sovereignty and decentralised data flows as described by two generations of information communication rights peers.

Not Love Songs

A young Cambodian rapper is given a choice: apologize for his music that champions social justice, or face imprisonment under a sweeping law commonly used by the government to silence freedom of expression.

Panulukan (Crossroads)

Can a journey across the Philippines make us question our direction as the preservers of truth, no matter what we think, decide, and believe?

Appa and His Invisible Mundu

Kuri thinks her father is a superhero, who can turn invisible with the help of his ‘mundu’. But when Appa faces Dineshan, the Great Eye in the Sky – a metaphor for state-based surveillance and digital oppression – he ends up losing his life and livelihood. How will Appa overcome the great villain?

Pattani Calling

To get a SIM card in insurgency-hit southern Thailand, you have to have your face scanned. Because of this, thousands of Malay Muslims are forgoing mobile communications and becoming biosecurity rebels against the state.

The Offensive Internet

In 2019, Malaysia’s internet penetration was at 90 percent, with almost all of the population possessing mobile phones and also on social media. However, the Malaysian government has been clamping down on critical voices in the internet, using its Communications and Multimedia Act to block websites and imprison individuals for sharing information critical of the government.