The pandemic of COVID-19, which forced cinema theaters to close and left exhibitors without revenue over a long period, may have dramatically changed the film business and its future. This paper seeks to examine the changing dynamic of film distribution through video streaming in the Southeast Asia region as a result of the impact of the pandemic. Some films may be chosen for video streaming media platforms as their alternative option for release into theatrical distribution. This pandemic also has changed film-viewing habits and behaviors among audiences. Several news reports have substantiated that Southeast Asian viewers are streaming more online video content due to COVID-19. As a result of the pandemic it appears that there is an accelerated shift to streaming media platforms across Southeast Asia countries. Local streaming platforms feed users their unique and culturally distinctive locally produced content which could be distinguished from that offered by global players. In 2020, some new streaming media platforms were launched for distributing film content to their targeted markets locally and internationally. Through the use of a review of trade and business press as well as interview, this paper attempts to identify and present areas of regional change and regional players which deserve systematic discussion and analysis.

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Cinema audiences' behavior interests both industry professionals and academics. Cinema-going is still indisputably popular form of entertainment in Malaysia. This study discusses cinema-going in the era of omnipresent screens. It aims to verify Malaysians' cinema going behaviors and the sustainability factors contributing to the Malaysian film industry. The various factors affecting cinema and movie-going behavior would include encouragement, theme, motivation, perception, gratification, and genre. The local filmmaking industry fell into a decline after 2014 based on observation of annual film production. In the context of westernization, this small market presents a challenge for the government in promoting local popular films. With the influx of genre films from abroad, Malaysian cinema is struggling to the hilt to survive. To understand this situation from the perspective of the audiences, this study, using data from surveys conducted in Malaysia in 2018, discusses the fandom of Malaysian cinema, their cinema-going behavior, and the association with their identities.

Spirituality is a contentious human phenomenon that encompasses personal, sociocultural, and transcendent interconnection. In Indonesian society, spiritual experiences are often associated with religion. They are also part of the cultural standard, the way of thinking, feeling, and behaving shared by most of a culture's members. This research aims to examine the spiritual and cultural values of Belitung's Muslim society through the Sang Pemimpi film. The research method in this study was critical discourse analysis, a qualitative approach based on a critical paradigm. This study combines Theo van Leeuwen's critical and multimodality discourse analysis techniques. Spiritual values and cultural standards are used as theoretical elements. The character in the film's text with the background of the Muslim society and the Belitung people's culture is the focus of this study. According to the film analysis, spirituality is formed by socio-cultural interactions in people's daily lives. The Malay Muslim community in Belitung adapts well to religious and cultural differences in their social relationships with other ethnic groups, including the Chinese ethnic groups. According to the findings of this study, religiosity and communal domains are the aspects that appear the most in the film.

The black superhero film is an important research object for anti-racism development. Under the White supremacy framework, Black people and culture have been devalued and neglected for a long time. The all-Black lead Marvel film Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler in 2018, employs a well-defined system to present the appeals on anti-racist and reconstruct the filmic Black identity. This study explicitly analyses the approach through which the images of Black people and Black culture are represented, and it attempts to understand how this film reconstructs Black people’s sense of self-identity. This study focuses on the physical appearance of Black superheroes and material culture, the spatial narrative of Black Panther’s fictional spatial world Wakanda, and the Black spirit depicted in the film. Cultural identity, cinematic representation theory, and social identity theory are used to interpret how Black Panther reconstructs Black identity and represents Black culture. This study discovers that Black superheroes are portrayed as powerful, justice, and wise as White people, and Wakanda provides a utopia for a non-racist world. Meanwhile, Black culture is depicted elegantly and proudly to reconstruct Black people’s recognition of cultural and social identity.