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A Voice from Indonesia: A Filmmaker Exposes Feudalism and Fear in the Film Industry
Film Industry Watch recently received the following anonymous email exposing what appears to be another alleged case of conflict of interest in the film festival circuit – where a co-producer on films is working for and with a festival that selects the same films for inclusion in its program. The anonymous email states:
“Dominique Welinski once again flexes her influence, leveraging her position to advance the career of the director she’s producing — this time with Arvin Belarmino and his official short film entry in the Cannes Main Competition for this year’s Cannes.
Arvin previously participated in last year’s Directors’ Factory, a program curated by Welinski, and his short film also competed in the Semaine de la Critique. This career trajectory is similar to Dominique’s collaboration with Israeli director Yona Rozenkier.”
Our investigation confirms that at least in terms of credit listings, this seems to be correct. This shows a pattern of influence that extends beyond the previously documented case with Israeli filmmaker Yona Rozenkier. This new instance further demonstrates how the film industry sometimes operates on connections rather than merit, creating barriers for talented filmmakers without insider access.
From Factory to Competition
Last year, our publication documented how this producer maintains multiple influential positions within the film industry. She holds the dual position of curator and producer for the Factory program at Director’s Fortnight, a constituent part of the Cannes Film Festival, while also serving as a consultant for the festival’s L’Atelier and Residency programs. This concentration of influence created a clear conflict of interest in her work with Israeli director Yona Rozenkier.
The same pattern has now emerged with Filipino filmmaker Arvin Belarmino. Our investigation confirms that:
- Belarmino participated in the Directors’ Factory 2024 program, which is curated by Welinski, directing a short film called “SILIG” with Cambodian filmmaker Lomorpich Rithy
- Belarmino’s film “Radikals” was selected for and competed at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week) As you can see in the image below, she is listed as a “key contributor” to the film.
- She is now a co-producer for Belarmino’s latest short film “AGAPITO,” which has been selected for the prestigious Official Selection – Short Film In Competition category at the 78th Cannes Film Festival
AN Established Pattern
This career acceleration mirrors what happened with Yona Rozenkier, where her production company DW produced or co-produced his works. Rozenkier’s short film “Butterflies” formed part of the Official Selection in 2019, while his subsequent short film “The Sign” was showcased during the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight—which she curates—the very same year.
Furthermore, Rozenkier’s feature film “Decompression” (also known as “The Dive“) featured within the L’Atelier program in 2017, which she advises on. His project “Siberia” (later renamed “Wild Animals”) was included in the 2020 Torino Film Lab program, where she served as a “Decision Maker”.
UPDATE 24/5 – a 2nd short in Cannes
Only after the publication of this article, thanks to another tip from our readers, Film Industry Watch realized that another short film which was produced by Welinski, Bleat! was selected for this years Critics Week. From Deadline: “The film is produced by Choo Mun Bel of Malaysia’s Sixtymac Pictures and co-produced by Malaysia’s Idio Sync Inc, founded by the director and Ahilan Subramaniam, French producer Dominique Welinski’s DW Productions and Bradley Liew of the Philippines’ Epicmedia Productions.” This is the 2nd film produced by the same festival insider that was selected to the 2025 edition.
2ND UPDATE 24/5 – A 2ND SHORT BY Arvin Belarmino
The following was posted as a comment on this article:
“There’s also one more Arvin Belarmino connection in the Official Selection for Festival de Cannes 2025. He is the Screenplay Writer for the Bangladeshi film ‘Ali’, which is also competing for the Short Film Palme d’Or.”
This information was quickly sourced here.
3RD UPDATE 25/5 – DEEP TIES
We received the following anonymous email:
“Dominique Welinski has deep ties with the producers from the Philippines who have several projects through the years in Cannes sections.
Welinski has ties with producer Bradley Liew who also produced Bleat! A Critics week judge is also worked with the winners prod co MOMO films.
The film Bleat! Was also received a grant from the company MOMO who has worked with the judge in the critics week.”
The following images were attached to the email:
4TH UPDATE – 28/5 – CANNES 2026 PARTICIPANTS ALREADY SELECTED?
A new comment to this article reads: “Directors Factory 2026 is taking place in Indonesia with Yulia Evina Bhara serving as Co-producer much like Bradley Liew did last year. So you can expect most of the names in this article or ones working [with] these names to be the favored Directors who will again have their films in Cannes because of their close connection with Welinski.”
Film Industry Watch will return to this comment in 2026 to demonstrate how it’s possible to predict film festival participants a full year in advance (!) possibly including one filmmaker selected for the Official Shorts Program who took part in Factory 2025.
What this tells us?
What this new information tells us is that there are overlapping personal and professional relationships between festival programmers, jurors, and producers whose films are selected or awarded – raising serious questions about fairness, transparency, and potential conflicts of interest in the selection process.
1. A Network of Repeated Collaborators with Strong Ties to Cannes Critics’ Week
Multiple figures—particularly Dominique Welinski, Yulia Evina Bhara, Bradley Liew, and Arvin Belarmino—appear to operate within a closely connected circle. These individuals frequently collaborate on films that are selected for La Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week) at Cannes.
2. Overlap Between Jury Members and Selected/Winning Projects
- Yulia Evina Bhara is a Critics’ Week jury member in 2025.
- She also collaborates with Momo Film Co, the company that won the Grand Prize in Critics’ Week 2025 (A Useful Ghost).
- Momo Film Co previously worked with her as a co-producer on Dreaming & Dying.
- This raises questions of impartiality, as jury members are professionally tied to production companies that are being judged.
3. Dominique Welinski’s Central Influence
- Welinski is named as a mentor and co-producer on multiple films selected at Cannes (e.g., Radikals, Bleat!).
- She is affectionately described by several filmmakers as “like a mother,” hosting dinners, giving career guidance, and securing opportunities.
- Posts and photos show her in informal, close settings with key team members behind selected projects—well beyond professional distance.
- She curates the Factory program and is involved in Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight selections, suggesting institutional influence across sections.
4. Multiple Selections Within the Same Social-Professional Group
- Radikals (Critics’ Week 2024) was co-produced by Welinski, with a producer (Kristine De Leon) and director (Arvin Belarmino) who have long ties to her.
- Bleat! (2024) was also co-produced by Welinski and Bradley Liew—who also appears in a personal dinner photo with her.
- A Useful Ghost (2025 Grand Prize winner) is linked to Momo Films and Yulia Evina Bhara—again circling back to individuals with ties to Critics’ Week.
What It Suggests
This pattern suggests a tight-knit network of producers, mentors, and jury members who continuously collaborate, support, and elevate each other’s work within Cannes festival circuits. While collaboration is a normal part of any industry, the lack of transparency, repeated selections, and overlapping roles (mentor, co-producer, juror) point to a potential conflict of interest and a closed ecosystem where access and personal relationships may outweigh merit.
This dynamic may cut both ways
In at least one case it seems that this dynamic extends beyond nurturing hand-picked directors, suggesting it can also close doors. One filmmaker recalls a baffling encounter: “In Cannes 2021, at a party, I greeted Dominique and the producer who was with her. A little later, I ran into the producer at the bar and offered another friendly ‘hi.’ She shot back, ‘I know who you are and I’ve heard everything about you!’ then turned on her heel and took off as if I were convicted of murder. It was so rude and strange. I still have no idea what she was implying; the whole episode struck me as utterly surreal. What are the implications of falling on the wrong side of someone as powerful as her, who clearly does not shy of using her influence, I can only guess. It seems she uses gossip as a weapon, and I have no idea what made up story was said.’ he recalls. The filmmaker, well known to the individuals involved, and who has made his position clear on this subject, is from the same country as Mr. Rozenkier, believes that this have been her tactic for ensuring that Rozenkier would face “less competition” in the international festival circuit and in securing financing by the national film funds in the country. Considering the many conflicts of interest and signs of abuse of institutional power by the said individuals, this does not seem far fetched, and has never been denied. ‘There are hundreds of dedicated, honest, and hardworking people in the film industry. Unfortunately it is the encounters with the few problematic people that could have lasting consequences. It is no coincidence that those are the same individuals who are mentioned throughout your website multiple times in relations to many irregularities.’
Why This Matters: The Closed Circuit of Influence
This situation epitomizes the “revolving door” dynamic prevalent in the film industry, as illustrated in our previous reporting. A limited circle of individuals hold a variety of influential positions, rotating between being program curators, fund advisors, and producers. When a person holds multiple roles of power—simultaneously curating programs, advising on selections, and producing films—they create a closed circuit where their own productions gain significant advantages over outsiders. Such interconnections perpetuate a culture of exclusivity, hindering fresh talent from entering the field. This is precisely why the film industry’s artistic output suffers, artistic merit becomes secondary to personal connections and insider relationships. We remind our readers the case in which a short competition selection committee had her own produced short selected to the very same program that she helps selecting films for.
It’s important to note that “AGAPITO” is one of only 11 short films selected from 4,781 entries worldwide to compete for the Short Film Palme d’Or. The odds of selection are extremely low (0.23%), raising questions about whether Belarmino’s connection to his producer, who also works for and with Cannes, played a role in securing this coveted spot.
A System That Benefits Insiders
As our previous reporting has shown, the film industry is structured as a network of interconnected and affiliated organizations that benefit only those who are members of the network, distributing resources among each other. This case exemplifies how this system works.
When a producer is strategically positioned to utilizes their influence to advocate for the works of directors with whom they are professionally associated, it potentially disadvantages other filmmakers who lack analogous connections within the festival’s administration and broader film festival community.
A Culture of fear
All of the above information was submitted to us anonymously. The reason for this is telling: there exists a pervasive culture of fear within the film industry. Filmmakers, especially those without institutional power or protection, have come to understand that “politics” – social alignment, affiliations, personal connections, and public signaling – all carry more weight than talent, merit, or originality. Speaking out, even privately, can jeopardize careers, funding opportunities, and access to vital networks. The fact that individuals feel compelled to withhold their identities, even in confidential contexts like this, speaks volumes. It reveals a system where fairness is compromised, where honesty comes with professional risk, and where many feel that navigating unspoken rules is more important than the quality of their work. That alone should give us pause.
NOT A BUG, but A FEATURE of the system
This is not an isolated failure or an unfortunate exception; it is a structural feature of the system. As French philosopher Foucault observed, power and influence are not merely held or possessed — they circulates, embedded in relationships, institutions, and discourses. In the context of the festival circuit, power manifests not through transparent meritocratic evaluation, but through informal networks of exchange, influence, and symbolic capital (or real capital.) Individuals in certain positions convert cultural and social capital into concrete opportunities, under the guise of fairness or professionalism. When dealing with art, which is so called subjective (it really isn’t, but this is a subject for another article) it is especially easy to hide behind the vail of subjectivity, which is why the world of art is so incredibly corrupt.
A truly merit-based system would not allow these forms of “soft” power to generate such outsized influence. The current structure actively incentivizes gatekeeping, favor-trading, and performative allyship. These are not aberrations; they are mechanisms by which the system reproduces itself. It is not a bug, it is a feature of the system. In an age where anyone can make a film with a cheap camera or even a mobile phone, it is not only meant to produce power for insiders, but also to protect the system, and the limited resources within its influence (state funding, investors money etc) from outsiders, and ensure that the limited resources are circulating within a small group of insiders.
Why the Media Stays Silent?
Traditional media outlets don’t address these issues openly because they are deeply entwined with the very institutions they would need to scrutinize. Film festivals, production companies, and industry gatekeepers provide journalists with access – early screenings, exclusive interviews, red carpet events, and press passes. In many cases, media organizations rely on these relationships for advertising revenue and content. Criticizing the system risks losing access, damaging partnerships, and jeopardizing future coverage opportunities. As a result, all journalists choose silence or vague language over honest reporting. It’s not that they don’t see the problem – it’s that speaking out would come at a cost they’re unwilling or unable to pay.
The Bigger Picture or – what happened to cinema?
Ever wondered why so many films are, to put it politely, not great?
There is no shortage of talented filmmakers but a deeply entrenched culture of favoritism and quiet corruption keeps many of them in the shadows. While a well-connected few circulate among festivals and cocktail parties, congratulating one another, the art of cinema continues to wither. And now, with the rapid rise of AI-generated content threatening to further marginalize human creativity, the final blow to independent, original filmmaking will arrive sooner than anyone expected.
5TH UPDATE – 28/5 – Behind the Festival Curtain: Untangling the Web of Southeast Asian Collaborations at Cannes 2025
A new comment has been posted on this article. Below is an analysis and verification of the information it contains:
Who did what – in the context OF asia being a continent of 4.75 billion people:
Gogularaajan Rajendran really is both the editor of Bleat! and one of the eight filmmakers selected for Directors’ Factory 2024 (Philippines edition).
Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan likewise appears in the same Factory line-up (co-directing the short Cold Cut).
His short Vox Humana is officially presented as a Momo Film Co project with Alemberg Ang credited as co-producer; the film is being circulated with Momo’s support, but public records do not yet confirm it as a cash recipient of the annual Momo Distribution Grant—only that it is a Momo-backed title.
RIA (feature debut of Arvin Belarmino) lists Alemberg Ang as producer and Momo Film Co and Dominique Welinski / DW among its co-producers on the Cannes Critics’ Week “Next Step” page, confirming their partnership.
Momo Film Co and Yulia Evina Bhara have previously teamed up on two high-profile festival films:
Don’t Cry, Butterfly – Venice Critics’ Week 2024 winner.
Dreaming & Dying – dual Leopard winner at Locarno 2023.
Bradley Liew (Epicmedia) and DW Productions (Dominique Welinski) are indeed the lead producers of Directors’ Factory 2024.
Renoir (Cannes main competition 2025, dir. Chie Hayakawa) lists both Yulia Evina Bhara and Alemberg Ang among its co-producers in industry press and credit sheets, confirming that the pair now share a feature-length project.
From a continent of 4.75 billion (with a B) people, this is highly coincidental.
How often they show up:
It’s undeniable that Bhara, Liew, Ang, Momo Film Co., and DW appear regularly at major labs and markets—Cinéfondation Résidence, La Fabrique, Locarno Open Doors, Venice Critics’ Week, Quinzaine des Cinéastes, and more—and frequently collaborate with one another. However, they are not the only Southeast Asian names active on the global circuit; filmmakers like Anthony Chen, Mouly Surya, Phạm Thiên Ân, and Woo Ming-Jin, among others, also maintain a consistent international presence. That said, in a region representing nearly 4.75 billion people, the concentration of opportunities and visibility around a relatively small group raises very valid questions. Statistically, such dominance is hard to explain without acknowledging the influence of a closely connected network, one that may, intentionally, function as a gatekeeping ecosystem with limited entry points for newcomers.
Points that were inaccurate:
Jury leadership. The 2025 Cannes Critics’ Week jury is chaired by Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen; Yulia Evina Bhara sits on the five-person jury but does not lead it.
“Only two SEA films.” This year’s Critics’ Week line-up contains at least two Southeast-Asian features (A Useful Ghost and RIA in development) and one SEA short (Bleat!). So the claim of exclusivity is not accurate.
Above is a network diagram that lays out the major nodes (people/companies and films/projects) and the lines of collaboration or influence between them. A few key patterns jump out visually:
- Momo Film Co. sits at the hub, linked to nearly every title and to multiple producers, underscoring its central role in this ecosystem.
- Yulia Evina Bhara, Alemberg Ang, and Dominique Welinski (DW) form a tightly knit triangle, each sharing at least one feature in common ( Renoir , RIA , Don’t Cry Butterfly , Dreaming & Dying ).
- Directors’ Factory 2024 connects a separate cluster—Rajendran, Eblahan, Liew, and DW—yet still loops back to Momo via other films.
- Even seemingly independent prize outcomes (Bleat! and A Useful Ghost) remain only a hop or two away from the same nucleus of producers and jurors.
In short, the “visual map” reinforces what the credit sheets suggest: a small, highly interconnected circle repeatedly occupies the same festival slots, award juries, and co-production banners—making it difficult for new voices to break in.
Award-giving coincidence:
The Critics’ Week Grand Prize was awarded to the Thai feature A Useful Ghost, with decisions made collectively by the jury chaired by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. The Queer Palm for Best Short Film – an independent award with a separate jury – went to Bleat!. While technically outside the Critics’ Week jury’s purview, the result is hardly surprising given the dense web of connections shared among the filmmakers, producers, and jurors involved.
Though Yulia Evina Bhara may not have directly influenced the Queer Palm outcome, she was involved in deliberations for A Useful Ghost, a film co-produced by companies she has collaborated with multiple times. It’s naive to assume that a single juror cannot steer discussion or tip a consensus, especially in a small, interwoven ecosystem like the one that dominates the Southeast Asian presence on the international circuit.
This points to a larger systemic flaw: festival juries should be completely free of any direct or indirect connection to the films in competition. That such conflicts of interest are tolerated—and even normalized—speaks to how insular and self-reinforcing the so-called “independent” film world has become. In any healthy cultural ecosystem, this would be a clear ethical breach. Here, it’s business as usual.
Take-away:
Almost every production link that the comment listed is genuine. The pattern is a tight, increasingly well-networked generation of SEA producers who pool resources across borders; international labs and sidebars actively encourage such clustering and degrade artistic output, let alone access to newcomers. This is another example of the issues that we keep raising on this website. We thank you for the contribution, please contact us for any additional information.
Source URLs:
https://www.quinzaine-cineastes.fr/en/directors-factory-2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleat%21
https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/edition/2025/movie/bleat
https://www.momofilm.co/short-films/vox-humana
https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/movie/ria
https://www.momofilm.co/features/ria
https://www.momofilm.co/features/dont-cry-butterfly
https://www.momofilm.co/features/dreaming-dying
https://gazettely.com/2025/05/entertainment/renoir-review
https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/edition/2025/jury
https://www.nationthailand.com/life/entertainment/40050316
NOTE TO READER:
Please note that this article is not meant to be an ad hominem attack on any specific person. The individuals mentioned and their positions in various organizations are used as examples for the way that the film industry operates. The positions, roles and professional relationship between individuals are public information. Sources are provided throughout the website. If you would like to report any inaccuracy please do not hesitate to contact us. Our aim is to improve and democratize the film industry by analyzing the way its institutions are set-up. In order to do so, we must list those organizations and the people who work for them or with them, and their relationship with each other.
Sources for the main article:
- https://filmindustrywatch.org/dominique-welinski/
- https://www.quinzaine-cineastes.fr/en/directors-factory-2024
- https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/articles/about-emradikalsem
- https://mb.com.ph/2024/5/2/filipino-short-film-radikals-selected-to-compete-at-cannes-63rd-semaine-de-la-critique
- https://www.heartofhollywoodmagazine.com/post/agapito-a-cinematic-marvel-imagined-by-the-brilliant-arvin-belarmino-and-kyla-romero-has-officially
- https://www.philstar.com/entertainment/movies/2025/05/06/2441076/filipino-short-filmmakers-compete-cannes-film-festival-2025
- https://filmfreeway.com/Butterflies641
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dive_(2018_film)
- https://popupfilmresidency.org/project/yona-rozenkier-siberia/
- filmindustrywatch.org
- https://letterboxd.com/film/radikals/
- https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/agapito/
- https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/artandculture/946126/young-filipino-filmmakers-heading-to-cannes-for-their-short-films-agapito-and-ali/story/
- https://horsdubocal.eu/films/silig
- https://deadline.com/video/cannes-critics-week-bleat-trailer-sixtymac-epicmedia/
- https://filmindustrywatch.org/melissa-malinbaum/
- https://deadline.com/2025/05/cannes-critics-week-winners-a-useful-ghost-imago-top-prizes-1236407401/
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20 Comments
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M
Pardon my French, but that sucks...people work very hard and put their hearts into their work, and to have it pushed aside for the sake of corrupt, sleazy, nepotistic behavior is a steep injustice. Good job pointing this out. Look at all the mediocre-talent, at best, children of Hollywood stars now making movies of their own and so many skilled, un-connected, actors and/or writers, like myself, getting squat?! Sad and pathetic.
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Angela Narth
Although the judging of creative works typically relies on a certain adherence to a broad set of criteria that most of those involved can agree on, it is still a largely objective endeavor. Clearly, when those judging any creative work are also contributors to any of the entries, we have a dilemma. Is it conflict of interest? Quite likely, yes. However, I take issue with one striking statement from the article: "Please note that this article is not meant to be an ad hominem attack on any specific person." Starting with your title, and continuing throughout ('when a person like Welinski'; 'when a producer like Welinski'), Dominique Welinski is named again and again as the perpetrator of various forms of favoritism. There is even a veiled suggestion that she bad-mouthed an unnamed producer to one of the other judges. If these aren't examples of ad hominum attacks, I don't know what is. Perhaps your efforts ought to be on constructing a proposal for re-organization of the festival's criteria for judges which would include a stipulation that no judge can be connected in any substantive way to any of the entries. In my humble opinion, that would be far more productive than stirring up a lot of suspicion and bad feelings in our already beleaguered industry.
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Film Industry Watch
Dear Angela, Ms. Welinski is referenced because she is central to this particular story. How could we write this article without including the names of the persons and films involved? All details included are sourced and part of the public record. Our articles are based on information shared with us by filmmakers who raise concerns about these practices, the email regarding this case is shown above. We only publish information that we can verify. In this case, it involves Ms. Welinski; tomorrow, it may be someone else. Many of the incidents reported to us are not published precisely because we cannot confirm and source them. We ask that if there is any mistake in this article, or any other, that our readers contact us so such mistakes can be corrected.
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Angela Narth
Your points taken. However, I still feel that a pro-active approach might be more successful. A.
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Film Industry Watch
Dear Angela, Please re-read the article. Since your comment, we have added not one but two updates. We appreciate your engagement and will take your feedback into account as we prepare a set of guidelines we believe festivals should follow, though, as we’ve noted elsewhere, we do not expect these to be respected. This is not an isolated failure or an unfortunate exception; it is a structural feature of the system. As Foucault observed, power is not merely held or possessed — it circulates, embedded in relationships, institutions, and discourses. In the context of the festival circuit, power manifests not through transparent meritocratic evaluation, but through informal networks of exchange, influence, and symbolic capital (or real capital, bribe, we're certain that happens too.) Individuals in certain positions convert cultural and social capital into concrete opportunities, often under the guise of fairness or professionalism. A truly merit-based system would not allow these forms of "soft" power to generate such outsized influence. The current structure actively incentivizes gatekeeping, favor-trading, and performative allyship. These are not aberrations; they are mechanisms by which the system reproduces itself. It is not a bug, it is a feature of the system. In an age where anyone can make a film with a cheap camera or even a mobile phone, it is not only meant to produce power for insiders, but also to protect the system, and the limited resources within its influence (state funding, investors money etc) from outsiders, and ensure that the limited resources are circulating within a small group of insiders.
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Anonymous
There's also one more Arvin Belarmino connection in the Official Selection for Festival de Cannes 2025. He is the Screenplay Writer for the Bangladeshi film 'Ali', which is also competing for the Short Film Palme d'Or.
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Film Industry Watch
Oh dear.
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Anonymous
And another one as well. His co-director and co-writer’s project SILIW was selected for Cinema Demain Focus Copro at Cannes 2025
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Bruna Spagnuolo
I have read the comments. They are all correct. The problem exists. Denying the complaints received by Film Industry Watch is like denying that the sun exists, but there are no names to mention and nothing else to do but look at all the sectors into which human life branches out. Cinema is a wonderful thing because all those who devote their lives to it are wonderful. Cinema professionals seek, invent, build dreams, descend into hell, go to paradise, investigate the hearts of lions, sheep and hyenas. They flush out hatred and sing of love on its tragic, complex, invisible strings, fragile as tender shoots and light as enchanting zephyrs. In cinema, as in all social sectors, there are men of their time. “Time”, the era, is the lupus in fabula to be investigated, the name to be named, the culprit to be pointed out. In this era, matches can shine like stars and suns can remain messages in bottles irretrievably lost in stormy oceans. These are times when the categories of “men, little men and quaquaraqquà”, created by the film Il giorno della civetta (The Day of the Owl), are more relevant than ever but... alas, they are no longer easily distinguishable. These are times when neither things nor people of value are recognised as such. They fall into the shapeless cauldron of the quest for mass visibility and affirmation. Without any foothold, they are and remain nobodies. Only the benevolent nod of a patron can perform the miracle of hooking them onto the driving gear. Where I come from, they say, “Without saints, you don't go to heaven”. In today's world, what we are discussing here is normal practice and does not only concern the world of cinema but all fields of human knowledge. We can only hope that it is not only small men and quaraqquà who have saints in heaven, and remember that “we need examples that are simple but true, like the imprints of those values that have been handed down through the heroic ages of those who came before us and connected us forever to the sense of our roots”.
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H
Directors Factory 2026 is taking place in Indonesia with Yulia Evina Bhara serving as Co-producer much like Bradley Liew did last year. So you can expect most of the names in this article or ones working these names to be the favoured Directors who will again have their films in Cannes because of their close connection with Welinski
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SGI
The editor of Bleat! Gogularaajan Rajendran participated in the Directors' Factory 2024. Another director from Directors' Factory 2024, Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan received the MOMO Distribution Grant for his short film Vox Humana which is Co-produced by Alemberg Ang. Alemberg Ang is the Producer of Arvin Belarmino's feature film RIA while MOMO and DW are Co-producers on the same film. Yulia Evina Bhara, Bradley Liew, MOMO, Alemberg Ang and DW are frequent collaborators. Year after year these are the only names from SEA which pop up at international labs, markets and festivals. MOMO and Yulia Evina Bhara worked on the Venice title Don't Cry Butterfly and Locarno title Dreaming and Dying. MOMO and Alemberg Ang are working on Ria. Bradley Liew and DW collaborated on Directors Factory 2024. Yulia Evina Bhara and Alemberg Ang worked on Renoir in Cannes Main Competition 2025. That the only two SEA films in Cannes Critics' Week won awards by a Jury led by Yulia Evina Bhara is no co-incidence. That too by to a producer she has worked with multiple times. It sickens me to the core that there is no fairness even in independent films. All this information can be verified by looking at their website and social media.
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Film Industry Watch
Film Industry Watch response: Who did what: Gogularaajan Rajendran really is both the editor of Bleat! and one of the eight filmmakers selected for Directors’ Factory 2024 (Philippines edition). Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan likewise appears in the same Factory line-up (co-directing the short Cold Cut). His short Vox Humana is officially presented as a Momo Film Co project with Alemberg Ang credited as co-producer; the film is being circulated with Momo’s support, but public records do not yet confirm it as a cash recipient of the annual Momo Distribution Grant—only that it is a Momo-backed title. RIA (feature debut of Arvin Belarmino) lists Alemberg Ang as producer and Momo Film Co and Dominique Welinski / DW among its co-producers on the Cannes Critics’ Week “Next Step” page, confirming their partnership. Momo Film Co and Yulia Evina Bhara have previously teamed up on two high-profile festival films: Don’t Cry, Butterfly – Venice Critics’ Week 2024 winner. Dreaming & Dying – dual Leopard winner at Locarno 2023. Bradley Liew (Epicmedia) and DW Productions (Dominique Welinski) are indeed the lead producers of Directors’ Factory 2024. Renoir (Cannes main competition 2025, dir. Chie Hayakawa) lists both Yulia Evina Bhara and Alemberg Ang among its co-producers in industry press and credit sheets, confirming that the pair now share a feature-length project. How often they show up: It’s fair to say that Bhara, Liew, Ang, Momo Film Co and DW crop up repeatedly at major labs and markets—Cinéfondation Résidence, La Fabrique, Locarno Open Doors, Venice Critics’ Week, Quinzaine, etc, and they often collaborate with one another. But they are not the only Southeast-Asian names doing so; filmmakers such as Anthony Chen, Mouly Surya, Phạm Thiên Ân, Woo Ming-Jin and many others appear just as regularly. Points that were inaccurate or overstated: Jury leadership. The 2025 Cannes Critics’ Week jury is chaired by Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen; Yulia Evina Bhara sits on the five-person jury but does not lead it. “Only two SEA films.” This year’s Critics’ Week line-up contains at least two Southeast-Asian features (A Useful Ghost and RIA in development) and one SEA short (Bleat!). So the claim of exclusivity is not accurate. Award-giving “co-incidence.” The Critics’ Week Grand Prize went to Thai feature A Useful Ghost, decided collectively by the Sorogoyen-led jury. The Queer Palm – Short Film (an independent award with its own jury) went to Bleat! not decided by the Critics’ Week jury at all, but not surprising considering all these connections.. Thus, Bhara was involved in the deliberation for A Useful Ghost but had no role in Bleat!’s award, and the prizes were not handed solely to collaborators of hers. But even one jury can easily sway awards in the direction they want, and such a conflict of interest should not exist in the jury at all. Take-away: Almost every production link you listed is genuine. The pattern is a tight, increasingly well-networked generation of SEA producers who pool resources across borders; international labs and sidebars actively encourage such clustering and degrade artistic output, let alone access to newcomers. This is another example of the issues that we keep raising, thank you for your contribution! Source URLs: https://www.quinzaine-cineastes.fr/en/directors-factory-2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleat%21 https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/edition/2025/movie/bleat https://www.momofilm.co/short-films/vox-humana https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/movie/ria https://www.momofilm.co/features/ria https://www.momofilm.co/features/dont-cry-butterfly https://www.momofilm.co/features/dreaming-dying https://rollingstonephilippines.com/culture/a-filipino-co-produced-film-is-headed-to-the-cannes-2025-competition-slate/ https://gazettely.com/2025/05/entertainment/renoir-review/ https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/edition/2025/jury https://www.nationthailand.com/life/entertainment/40050316 https://hype.my/2025/472879/malaysian-short-film-bleat-wins-queer-palm-award-at-cannes-film-festival-2025/
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10 01
Vox Humana was not a recipient of the MOMO Distribution Grant: https://www.momofilm.co/momo-distribution-grant
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Film Industry Watch
The article says: "public records do not yet confirm it as a cash recipient of the annual Momo Distribution Grant—only that it is a Momo-backed title."
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UI
Arvin Belarmino is an alumni of La Residence Cannes (Ria), La Fabrique Cannes (Ria), Next Step Cannes (Ria), Critics' Week Cannes (Radikals), Directors Factory Cannes (Silig), Short Film Competition Cannes (Agapito, Ali). Seven selections at Cannes, all within a span of three years. Come on, at least pretend to be fair at some point.
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4
https://cinemadedemain.festival-cannes.com/en/2025/focus-copro-2025-three-projects-selected-by-pop-up-film-residency-ecam-industria-hff-munchen/ Arvin Belarmino's writer and co-director for Agapito.
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88
What exactly is the need of a program like Directors’ Factory? How is it fair that Dominique Welinski gets to hand pick 8 directors a year in advance and regardless of how good or bad their films are, premiere them officially in Cannes, which is the supposed to be the most prestigious film festival in the world? If you look at the Directors Factory namesake “open calls”. Even they are only for 4 directors from the host country. So how exactly are the other 4 international directors selected? Of course it’s through lobbying and favouritism. People like Dominique Welinski have turned Cannes into their private tea party. No one but the Cannes Festival Director is to be blamed for turning a blind eye to this. I wonder what dirt she has on him. Also, Directors aren’t made in bloody factories!!!
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Sundance Kid
It's all really sad, but what's worse is that AI is going to destroy the entire film industry within two years anyway, so me and all my friends are going to be out of business :-(
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Truth
https://variety.com/2025/film/festivals/cannes-critics-week-next-step-studio-indonesia-1236558526/ What did I tell you six months ago! They're not even trying to hide anymore. Don't be surprised if most of the filmmakers selected for this end up co-producing with either Welinski or Bhara in the future. Cannes is a joke!
Jackie
Why should a judge be allowed to compete?? Yes it is a conflict of interest..!!! Do you see judges in a Beauty Pageant also walking down the aisle in a bikini.. ?? NO !!