Davi Martins, a commercial director of a financial institution, and Juliana Martins, a personal trainer, are a couple trying to recover from a crisis. At work, Davi ends up getting involved in the investigation of a financial scandal, putting himself in the crosshairs of dangerous people. Little by little, Juliana discovers that her new home may not be a new beginning, but the stage for a real nightmare. Some secrets may end her life
Two working class youtubers ‘in the making’ enter an abandoned mansion to get their basketball back, and get lost inside while pranking each other. They record their ‘quick adventure’ with their phones for their audience, and tweak it with a fake phantom appearance to attract more followers to their YouTube channel. When uploaded the video goes viral, so they start a challenge: if the video reaches a certain number of views, they will enter the house again, at night, alone, totally unprotected. As fans react positively, they will do as promised, not only to discover and unveil the true nature of the place and their inhabitants, but to realize they might not be among the living anymore. Which opens a question - how far would you go to be famous?
Following her mother’s death, manga artist Soriya travels to her ancestral home in Phnom Penh, with hopes of reconnecting with her distant family and using the visit as inspiration for her work. All goes well initially. Renting an apartment in Metta, a rundown Khmer Rouge-era housing complex, her visit to her maternal relatives finds her welcomed with open arms. But Soriya’s waking hours in the apartment and its surroundings are punctuated by terrifying, bloody visions, almost as though she were a conduit for horrors of the past wanting to seep into the present. Inrasothythep Neth and Sokyou Chea’s blood-chilling psychological horror explores a personal and political past through the present, transforming a characterful space into an insidious environment. Surrounded by modern high-rises, this decrepit structure, with its brutalist architecture and peeling surfaces, is a relic from a dark period in history whose painful memories it has absorbed. In tracing Soriya’s ominous journey back to her roots, Tenement hints at a necessary reckoning with Cambodia’s political past without overplaying its historical dimension. It’s an impressive work from a woefully underrepresented national cinema.