Depicting the look, sound, and feel of intense internal emotion on screen is in the hands of the storyteller. Filmmakers employ different tools and techniques to express the complicated inner lives of characters, leaving space for the viewer to interpret their actions, motivations and decisions.

Beginning with Silkworm, writer-director Amir Hoarmand shows how a split-second decision made by one brother unlocks a moral dilemma for another and an unsavory entanglement for both. In Desync, director Minerva Marie Navasca tells the story of a daughter who attempts to overwrite a painful memory of her mother with an idyllic narrative. Then, in You Ask Too Much, writer-director Ajay Rakhraj presents an unsettling portrayal of the inner dialogue of a near-deaf 94-year-old grandmother who relies on the caretakers around her to survive. Oversight, written and directed by Lorna Kidjo, places the viewer in the role of judge—leaving us to interpret what exactly happened between two characters at a laundromat late one night. Finally, in The Body of My Name, director Rosie Choo Pidcock abandons the common custom of donning an English name and exuberantly reclaims a Chinese one through dance. - Marina Hanna