What My Plastic Mother is about
My Plastic Mother — originally titled Anak Macan in Indonesian — is a short fiction drama about a boy named Eki who lives beside a colossal landfill and becomes consumed by a single, desperate mission: to find a keepsake buried somewhere in the trash that will help him hold onto his late mother. The stakes feel enormous for 17 minutes. Heavy rain, the threat of landslides, hostile scavengers, and the grinding noise of machinery all work against him as he digs, and the film treats his search not as melodrama but as something closer to ritual — the kind of grief that doesn't know how to stop moving. It's a film about what we do when memory itself feels like it might be swallowed whole.
How My Plastic Mother came together — production and festival recognition
Written and directed by Amar Haikal, My Plastic Mother is an independent production that has traveled the international short-film circuit with quiet confidence. According to the Singapore International Film Festival, the film screened as part of SGIFF's 2025 program — its Singapore premiere — and also appeared at QCinema in the Philippines, which remains one of Southeast Asia's more discerning platforms for short-form work. That's a meaningful double: SGIFF and QCinema together signal a film that programmers are taking seriously, not just filling a slot.
Haikal, who also produced the film, has spoken openly about his thematic preoccupations. A profile at FilmInk notes his focus on masculinity, childhood, and the emotional cost of life on society's margins — themes that run through My Plastic Mother like a current beneath still water. The production is lean by design. No major studio, no announced distributor, no cast names that arrive pre-loaded with expectations. Just the concept, the location, and whatever Haikal and his collaborators managed to pull out of a working landfill.
Runtime sits at 17 to 18 minutes depending on the festival print. No MPAA rating applies — this is a festival short, not a theatrical release — and box-office figures aren't relevant here. What matters is the circuit it's running, and so far that circuit suggests a filmmaker building a real reputation one carefully chosen screening at a time. No Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic aggregate scores are listed as of this writing, which is typical for shorts at this stage. Movie OTT will update critical scores and awards recognition as they become available.
Why My Plastic Mother works — craft, grief, and Haikal's lyrical eye
Honestly, the thing nobody mentions enough about short films like this is how much pressure the form puts on every single frame. You don't have 90 minutes to build sympathy. You have 17. And from what early critical coverage suggests, Haikal earns it fast.
Asian Movie Pulse described the film as a "profoundly human" portrait of grief and poverty — which is accurate as far as it goes, but doesn't quite capture the texture of what Haikal is doing. The word "lyrical" keeps appearing in the coverage, and I keep coming back to that. A landfill is not an obviously poetic setting. It's loud, it smells, it's defined by what people have thrown away. Haikal uses that against you. The search Eki undertakes through discarded things — to find something that mattered — carries a weight that the setting earns rather than undermines.
The film's treatment of masculinity is worth noting too. Eki isn't performing toughness. He's a child doing something children do: refusing to let go. Haikal frames that refusal with patience, which is its own kind of craft decision. There's a sequence — Eki pressing through rain and machinery noise, the camera not cutting away — that lands somewhere between documentary and fable. Hard to say if every viewer will sit with it the same way, but the ambiguity feels intentional rather than unresolved.
What's striking is how the film manages to be about poverty and grief simultaneously without letting either swallow the other. That balance is genuinely difficult to strike in any runtime, let alone 17 minutes.
Where to stream My Plastic Mother online
My Plastic Mother is currently available on major OTT services — check the Where-to-Watch widget at the top of this page for the most current platform listings, since streaming rights for festival shorts can shift quickly. The film's primary distribution home has been the festival and industry circuit, including Festival Scope Pro, which caters to programmers and industry professionals rather than general audiences. Wider streaming availability on mainstream global platforms hasn't been broadly confirmed as of this writing. Movie OTT tracks current streaming availability across major services and updates platform listings as distribution deals are finalized, so this page will reflect any changes as they happen. If you're looking to watch now, the widget is your fastest route to what's live.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who directed My Plastic Mother?
My Plastic Mother was written and directed by Amar Haikal, an Indonesian filmmaker whose work focuses on themes of masculinity, childhood, and marginalized communities. The film is an independent production with no major studio attached.
Q: Where can I watch My Plastic Mother?
The film is available on major OTT services — use the Where-to-Watch widget on this page for live platform links. It has also screened on the festival circuit, including at the Singapore International Film Festival and QCinema in the Philippines, and on industry platform Festival Scope Pro.
Q: What is My Plastic Mother about?
The film follows Eki, a boy living near a massive landfill, as he searches desperately through the trash for a keepsake connected to his late mother. It's a short drama about grief, memory, and what it costs to hold onto someone you've lost.
Q: Is My Plastic Mother based on a true story?
No confirmed real-life basis has been publicly announced. The film is a work of fiction, though Haikal's focus on communities living on society's margins suggests the emotional and social context is drawn from observed reality rather than pure invention.
Q: How long is My Plastic Mother?
My Plastic Mother runs approximately 17 to 18 minutes depending on the festival print — firmly a short film, not a feature. That runtime has screened at international festivals without cuts or alterations.
Who should watch My Plastic Mother — a final word
My Plastic Mother is for anyone who doesn't need a film to be long to feel complete. Seventeen minutes. A landfill. A boy who won't stop looking. Amar Haikal has made something that earns its place on the festival circuit not through spectacle but through precision — every choice feels considered, nothing is wasted. If you follow short-form cinema, Southeast Asian independent work, or films about grief that don't reach for easy comfort, this one deserves your time. Movie OTT will continue tracking awards recognition and expanded streaming availability as the film moves through its festival run and into wider distribution.