The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival returns for 2026 with a packed slate that rewards a bit of digging. Beyond the headline titles, it’s often the smaller works, especially in animation and side programming, where the real surprises tend to surface.
This year feels particularly strong in that regard. Whether by design or coincidence, animation has a noticeable presence, adding texture to an already diverse lineup. Now in its 43rd year, LAAPFF continues to offer plenty to explore across its five-day run. Here are my picks worth seeking out:
113 Words For You Today
A team of workers is sent to planet Gliese 12b to build a gravitational portal. To survive the cold, each person is limited to 138 words per day. Soo chooses his words carefully. Even a groan from pain feels like a loss. When a blizzard hits, he risks everything to retrieve a vital crystal, too reserved to ask for help. Lost in the storm, he survives the night in a crashed cable car.
Returning at last, exhausted but alive, he picks up the phone, calls Earth, and waits. When the line connects, he smiles and proudly says, “Hi sweetie, I saved 113 words for you today.”
2026 AD
The sexy, the stoners, the monsters, and the thoughts we only have in the dark. Confront the end of the world, or just the end of the night, in this late-night showcase. Your curiosity and your nerves will be rewarded.
A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers
A giallo-drenched feminist subversion of Edward Yang’s acclaimed film A Brighter Summer Day, but this time, the film’s tragic female protagonist gets her bloody revenge at a screening of Deep Red. For the real cinephiles who respect Yang and Dario Argento equally.
Another World
Gudo is a Soul Keeper, a spirit who guides human souls into their next life. When he befriends a young girl named Yuri, he discovers that her untimely death has left her cursed with unresolved rage and regret. As Yuri’s soul teeters on the edge of annihilation, Gudo embarks on a dangerous journey to stop her from unleashing horrible destruction on both the human world and the spirit realm.
Heat in the Barrio
Maribel and Jorge’s walk to school is no easy feat, as a zoot-suit-wearing Pachuco is hot on their trail, leaving the children to question the future of their community in the climate he creates.
Insider
A popular campus idol panda and an unnamed boy embark on a treasure hunt guided by a mysterious map. Their journey gradually blurs the boundary between memory and identity, revealing a hidden truth: the boy is the panda’s forgotten childhood self. As they retrace fragments of the past, the panda confronts the gap between the persona he performs for the world and the self he once abandoned. What begins as an adventure becomes an intimate search for authenticity, leading him to a quiet reconciliation with his true inner self.
Mr. Ramen
Mr. Ramen tells the story of the last family-owned ramen restaurant in Los Angeles’ historic Little Tokyo neighbourhood. Thirty-two years ago, Shinobu-san opened Mr. Ramen on Little Tokyo’s historic 1st Street. After his passing, his sons, Ray, Yudai, and Eugene, are faced with a difficult choice: continue running the restaurant in his memory, or step away to pursue their own paths. As the future of Mr. Ramen hangs in the balance, the film captures a family at a crossroads, and what’s at stake when gentrification threatens to erase a neighbourhood.
Out of Eden
Philippines, 2099. A mother takes her daughter on a clandestine trip to partake in their theocratic leader’s divine ascension. When they reach the hallowed site, it is revealed that the citizens have only been used as disposable workers by the imperialist elite to escape a dying Earth. Out of Eden forewarns of a future without a future, where those who awaken would just rather stay asleep.
Ramen Western
Mabel is a young Chinese American girl living in Chicago’s Chinatown. Unsure of what to write in her “What the American West Means to Me” paper, she sets off on a train with a bowl of sentient ramen to find answers. She travels through the Rocky Mountains and abandoned ghost towns, finally arriving in California, only to discover that her ancestors never left. On a journey beyond their wildest dreams, Mabel and her ramen sidekick reimagine what the American West means to them.
Trading Cards
An enigmatic man journeys back in time to find his younger self, seemingly to revisit the nostalgia of trading cards. An exploration of identity, mental health, and the erosion of childhood innocence, Trading Cards is a dark fantasy animated film about the weight of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
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