Special Jury Award, New York Asian Film Festival 2025
The film focuses on the turbulent romance between a transgender sex worker seeking to realise her dream of living in a woman’s body, and a cage fighter in 1990s Saigon. San wants to have enough money for a sex-change operation that will fulfil her dream of living in a woman’s body. San’s lover, Nam, must work as an underground dog-cage fighter to support this dream. The young lovers are unaware that the dark forces they will have to battle may cost them their relationship and test the limit of their humanity.
Ash Mayfair is an award-winning writer and director based in Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City. In 2018, she wrote, directed, and co-produced her first feature, The Third Wife, which premiered at TIFF. The film won the NETPAC Jury Award and more than 20 awards worldwide, as well as three Spirit Award nominations in the US. Mayfairs second feature, Skin Of Youth (2025), is one of four winners of the NYU Purple List for the best unproduced screenplays written by graduates. She is an alumna of the Sundance Film Two Lab 2020 and a recipient of the Berlinale Nipkow Fellowship 2020.
Diversion
