SINdie

The European Union Film Festival (EUFF) celebrates 25 years of passion for cinema from 13 to 24 May 2015 at GV Suntec City. The largest EUFF yet, the 25th edition features 29 films from 29 European countries representing the best of contemporary European cinema. From the opening film The Connection, a French crime thriller set in the 1970s, Swiss-Italian film The Wonders which won the 2014 Cannes Grand Prix to the recently Oscar nominated Estonian film Tangerines and the cinematically arresting Academy Award winning Polish film Ida, the 25th EUFF offers Europe’s diverse contemporary creativity and multi-faceted cultural heritage. The EUFF also once again continues its tradition of presenting the best of local short films by emerging filmmakers through its partnership with Puttnam School of Film, LASALLE College of the Arts.

The Connection, Dir. Cédric Jimenez, France, 2013

The Singapore perspective on film-making will be seen in 29 short films by students from the Puttnam School of Film, LASALLE College of the Arts. As part of the film school partnership programme with the EUFF, these films will be screened alongside each of the feature films. Encapsulated within these films are core issues of national, cultural and personal identity, introducing another realm that adds to the narratives for the SG50 celebrations.

Here are more details on the short films by the Puttnam School of Film students:

Cain

2015, 5 mins

Rating: TBA

Director, Writer & Editor: Aron Castro

Cast: Marc Goldberg, Amanda Chan and Kent W. Dulguime

13 May, 7.00pm: Opening at GV Grand, Hall 6 – By invitation only

21 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

In a ravaged, post-apocalyptic world, Cain needs to find measures to survive. In an encounter thinking it is just another standoff, an unexpected ending ensues.

6:30PM

2014, 5 min

Rating: G

Director: Cheng Chai Hong

Cast: Heng Mui Tien

22 May, 9.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

A mother’s empty nest syndrome and coming to terms with her relationship with her grown children.

A Short Stint

2014, 5 mins

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Jason Lau

Cast: Dai Gao Le, K.R Menon and Cobysot Avego

14 May, 6.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A young Chinese man who is unable to speak English gets a job in Singapore and struggles with communication.

Boy Meets Girl

2014, 5 min

Rating: TBA Director: Ho Say Peng Cast: Ho Say Peng & Erica Rodrigues

17 May, 4.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

A short tale of a young man's first date.

By the Silver Wind

2013, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Lor Hui Yun

Cast: Chng Xin Xuan and Ng Jing Jing

20 May, 9.50pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

The film is an experimental piece that deals with one’s process of loss and grieving.

Cheena ManaIvi

2014, 11 min

Rating: PG

Director & Producer: Charlene Chung

Editor: Wilson Tan

Cinematographer: Lee Wenxian and Jolinna Ang

Cast: Chee Leeying Sham, Munusamy Milevaganam and Davian Milevaganam

17 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 5

Cheena Manaivi is showing to what extent one would compromise and give in to a different racial and religious culture as well as finding an identity within. Cheena Manaivi is about an interracial family-of an Indian and Chinese marriage, although being married for close to fifteen years now, there are still people who refuse to accept them as one, and to love them for whom they are.

Dark

2014, 5 mins

Rating: G

Director, Writer & Editor: Nurbibiyana Hussain

Cast: Nurbibiyana Hussain

14 May, 9.50pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A young girl experiences total darkness at home when the family cannot pay the electricity bills.

Family Recipe

2014, 12 min

Rating: PG

Director & Producer: Vannesa Sim

Cinematographer: Albert Mok and Amerendra Bhosle

Editor: Thais Breton

Cast: Sim Cher Ping, Kang Ann Hoon, Kang Peng Ching, Tan Yong Sima and Michael Lim

23 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

Leaving behind a legacy of hand written recipes and cooking journals after her death in the early millennium of 2001, Celia Kang’s cooking had been loved by many and always had a reputation for bringing people together by cooking up a storm. Having her archives recovered twelve years later, Celia Kang’s recipes and family’s heritage will be brought to life through this documentary directed by her youngest daughter, Vannesa Sim. Through the roots of this family, this documentary journeys through the footprints of Celia Kang’s life.

Grandma

2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Lim Yen

Cast: Chan Yoke Sim Helen and Sng Yi Xin

24 May, 4.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

An elderly woman set in her ways has her course averted one day.

Habit

2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Jackie Tan Yi Yong

Cast: Jackie Tan Yi Yong

23 May, 9.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

A young man's life is transformed when he discovers beat-boxing.

Home Video

2014, 5 min

Rating: G

Director, Writer & Editor: Aloysius Koh

19 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

During the course of a Chinese New Year visit, a grandmother’s relationship with her family is observed.

Insignificant

2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Shane Li Yushan

Cinematographer: Jason Lau

Cast: Kristin Li and Neo Zong Lei

16 May, 4.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

A strong-willed but good hearted woman struggles with surviving in the city.

It’s Okay

2013, 11 min

Rating: PG

Director: Alvin Soh

Cinematographer: Lee How Chuen

Writer: Cheng Chai

Cast: Gabriel Low, Ong Qi Wei and Cliston Tan

21 May, 9.40pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A boy continuously witnesses his father abusing his mother and takes drastic measure as he is pushed to boiling point.

Jiak Kantang

2013, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Jasmine Lee

Cast: Jasmine Lee, Jacklyn Lee and Lee Hung Chiang

17 May, 9.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

When a young girl who cannot speak a word of Hokkien sits by the dinner table with her family, humorous incidences entails in an encounter lost in translation.

Kental

2014, 5 min

Rating: TBA

Director, Writer & Editor: Muhamad Afiq Jaafar

Cast: Hakeem

19 May, 9.35pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A young Malay boy suffers an intense dilemma with surprising results.

Lonely Shadow 2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director: Li Xiaochen 16 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

The notion of Chinatown and what it means for a migrant community.

Majulah

2014, 11 min Rating: G

Director & Editor: Sharavana Rama

Producer: Khoo Yun

Cinematographer: Glenn Ong

16 May, 2.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

What meaning do words like ‘bahagia’, ’mulia’ and ‘berjaya’ have on our lives, if at all? A celebration of unique contradictions and a search for a meaningful belonging in a small island encircled by a global presence, Majulah has some answers in this short documentary about our people and progress.

Puberty

2014, 7 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Kenneth Lee

Cinematographer: Daryl Ong

Art Director: Vivien Koh

Cast: Wong Yi Lin and Vanessa Toh

20 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A tale of a pregnant young girl who attempts to run away to Malaysia to be with her boyfriend.

The Boy

2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Jason Lau

Cinematographer: Ivan Yau

Cast: Brien Lee and Yolby Low

24 May, 6.15pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A young boy's desperate search for his father lead to self realisation and his loss of innocence.

The Boy and His Planes

2014, 5 min

Rating: TBA

Director, Writer & Editor: Ivan Yau

Cast: Aston Ng and Rosha Chandra

17 May, 2.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A frustrated boy in search of his neighbour ends up finding a friend.

The Collectors

2014, 12 min

Rating: G Director, Writer & Editor: Thais Breton

Cinematographer: Jolinna Ang

15 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

The Collectors explores the relationship between three individuals affected by the disease of Alzheimer’s and their children, caught in a race to gather as many memories they can before it is too late. Their stories echo on the stones of the rare places left in Singapore to be imprinted with a past. A parallel is formed between an individual fright of memories loss, and a collective amnesia provoked by a local race to thrive in modernity.

The Intruder

2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Lucas Chia

Cast: Joan Swee

23 May, 2.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

On his father’s 20th death anniversary, the filmmaker seeks to reflect how a disease claimed life.

The Girl by the Window

2014, 5 min

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Ko Shui Min

Cast: Ko Shui Min 18 May, 9.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

A whimsical tale of a withdrawn teenager who finds a friend.

The Space We Are In

2012, 5 min

Rating: PG Director: Vivien Koh

Cast: Vivien Koh and Rachel Koh

15 May, 9.50pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

The Space We Are In explores the identity of a twin.

The Missing Wave

2015, 5 mins

Rating: PG

Director, Writer & Editor: Lor Hui Yun

Cast: Adrian Phuah

23 May, 4.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 1

An evocative piece on Changi Beach and its historical legacy from the Japanese Occupation.

2014, 5 min

Rating: TBA

Director, Writer & Editor: Eugene Lee

Cast: Low Yew Wah and Low Hwee Joo

24 May, 1.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

A lonely old man prepares for death.

Spirit

2014, 15 min

Rating: PG13

Director: Julius Ooi

Producer: Aron Castro

Editor: Syafiqah Ramani

Writer: Eugene Lee

Cast: Tiffany Yong, Chan Yoke Sim and Rayvin Teng

18 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 4

A young couple move to their new house. Strange things begin to happen as the wife is left on her own

Superlegend

2013, 5 min

Rating: G

Director, Writer & Editor: Vivien Koh

Cast: Jody Chan and Sean Poh

22 May, 7.00pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 3

A tale of an affinity between two unlikely and eccentric souls.

Wither

2014, 5 mins

Rating: TBA

Director, Writer & Editor: Jasmine Lee

Cinematographer: Maung Moe Myint

Cast: Low Hwee Joo

16 May, 9.30pm: GV Suntec City, Hall 5

A lonely old lady fusses over her granddaughter with surprising consequence.

Screenings for the public will be from 14 to 24 May 2014. Tickets are priced at $12, and will be available online on the GV website at www.gv.com.sg and through walk-in at GV box offices islandwide from end of April 2015. More ticketing and film programme details can be found at http://euff.sg/.

23 April 2015, Singapore – mm2 Entertainment Pte. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore Exchange-listed mm2 Asia Ltd. (“mm2 Asia”), announced today that it will launch the Movie Makers Short Film Competition (我要当导演) in Singapore, together with FOX International Channels’ (“FIC”) flagship Chinese movies channel, SCM (衛視電影台). This competition is an initiative aimed at developing new talent in the local film industry as well as providing aspiring directors with opportunities to showcase their potential.

A panel of regional judges will pick the top 3 winners. The panel comprises of acclaimed film practitioners; Singaporean directors Jack Neo (Ah Boys to Menseries) and Eric Khoo (My Magic), Malaysian director Chiu Keng Guan (The Journey), Taiwanese director Raymond Jiang (Café. Waiting. Love) and Hong Kong award-winning actor-producer Gordon Lam (Gallants).

The three winners will be awarded cash prizes. There will also be products sponsored by Canon Cinema EOS Systems. The total value of the prizes amount to over S$20,000. The winning films will also be broadcasted in Singapore on FIC’s leading premium Chinese movies channel SCM. In addition, one of the winners will be given the opportunity to produce a feature film with mm2 Entertainment.

"After so many years of making movies, it is my pleasure to play a part in helping aspiring new directors make their dreams come true,” said Gordon Lam.

“I am excited by the idea of this regional competition as I started off making short films. I look forward to the judging and hopefully I will discover some gems along the way,” said Eric Khoo.

“I enjoy watching short films. Every time I find interesting and touching short films at the festivals, I get very excited,” said Taiwanese director Raymond Jiang. “I hope this short film competition will bring me on another amazing trip.”

"Most world class film directors had humble starts from short films and I look forward to the emergence of future great directors from this competition," said Chiu Keng Guan.

“I strongly believe in supporting short film competitions, because this is a good place to discover directors and actors with great potential,” said Jack Neo. “Singaporeans should band together to support our own local talents and films.”

Movie Makers Short Film Competition (我要当导演), is open to all Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents who are 18 years of age as of 1 June 2015. Submissions start on 1 June 2015, Monday and ends on 31 July 2015, Friday.

Each short film entry must be solely produced for Movie Makers Short Film Competition (我要当导演) and must not be available elsewhere or entered into any other film competitions. The film duration must be under 10 minutes.

Ten finalists will be selected for the Awards Night scheduled in early September 2015, with the top 3 winners announced on the night itself. Details will be released closer to date.

Terms and conditions of the Competition and application forms are available at www.mm2moviemakers.com

Applications forms are to be submitted to entry@mm2moviemakers.com.

Movie Makers Short Film Competition (我要当导演) is organised by mm2 Entertainment Pte Ltd and FIC; Presented by Canon Cinema EOS Systems, with StarHub as the Main Sponsor.

‘Anchovies’ is a short film we discovered during the 6^th Singapore Short Film Awards earlier this year. It captivated us with its mish mash of fantasy, rustic beauty, and nostalgic nod to the old Malay movies of the 50s and 60s.

It is a 23-min Malay short film produced by The Big Shots in collaboration with zero3studio, supported by the Singapore Film Commission. It's written and produced by prolific filmmaker of children's films Lee Chee Tian, directed and edited by Zulkifli Salleh, and photographed by cinematographer Lim Beng Huat. It stars newcomer child actor Amirul Hakimi Bin Fauzi, Aric Hidir Amin, and veteran Malay actors Roslan Kemat and Daeng Amer. It is intended to be the final instalment of the "ABC Junior Films" trilogy produced by the same team. The other 2 films that make up the trilogy are "Beam" (which was covered by SINdie previously at http://www.sindie.sg/2010/03/dialogue-panasonic-digital-film-fiesta.html) and "Colours" (which was also covered by SINdie at http://www.sindie.sg/2008/08/celebrate-drama-colours-by-derek-lui.html) . It just recently won the Gold Remi Award in the Family / Children Category at the 48th WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival last weekend in Houston, USA.

Synopsis:

A boy watches a scary sea monster movie and becomes afraid of the sea.

Problem is, he comes from a family of fishermen, and is expected to become a fisherman too.

Will this spell the end of his traditional livelihood?

Trailer:

We chat with writer and producer Lee Chee Tian and director Zulkifli Salleh to learn more about how this exquisite film was made?

How did you conceptualise the story? Is your family in the fishing business as well?

CT: The idea for the story actually came about when the Korean monster movie "The Host" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468492) came out. I was letting my kids watch that movie on DVD, and it just struck me then, while observing how they reacted to the movie - what if they got too scared of the monster, and ran away midway, without watching the movie to its end - what scar will it leave on them for the rest of their lives? Thus hatched the central idea of the film.

Initially, I was thinking of using a widely recognisable sea monster of my own childhood era, and what better than "Jaws", of course. Unfortunately, I was given a rude shock when I found out from Universal how much they'll charge us for incorporating a few seconds of footage from that movie (not only was the number as large as the shark, it was in USD too!) So that idea had to be abandoned, and we made "Beam" in its place.

The story got shelved for some years, and one day, while looking for new story ideas to make new films, it struck me again that I had at hand some children's films under my belt made over the years - "Colours", "Beam".... I just need one more "A"-titled film to make a sort of trilogy. The Jaws story somehow resurfaced, and I thought, what if I change the sea monster, such that instead of Jaws, it's some other sea monster with an "A" name, and instead of something big, it's something small, yet very recognisable.... The result of that brainstorming - ikan bilis, whose English name happens to be "Anchovies" - just what I need!

And the rest of the story just swam into place after that enlightenment.

And no, none of us are in the fishing business.

I like how you blend the elements of old Malay cinema into the world of the young boy who is faced with some real-wrold dilemmas. Is this also a tribute film to old Malay cinema? Can you share more about your influences in this film.

CT: As I explained, I initially intended to use "Jaws" instead of a Malay movie, but forced by circumstances and issues of practicality, we simply had to adapt. Now, on hindsight, I'm glad that we didn't get to proceed with the "Jaws" idea, and made it into the ikan bilis story that it is now. And because we decided to use "Ikan Bilis" as our sea monster, everything naturally became very Malay, and we realised we actually had a rich local Malay cinema to draw our inspiration from rather than a Hollywood blockbuster, and it just made more sense!

It's just like what the father character in the film keeps telling his son, "We should know our place." Why try to be Hollywood when we have our own identity that we've built ourselves that we ought to be proud of?

ZUL: When Chee Tian handed me the script for Anchovies, the treatment for the movie that Lat watches is already an old Malay cinema movie which I agree is a great idea. Some of my references for these scenes were films by the late P Ramlee such as "Seniman Bujang Lapok" and "Pontianak". These films are great as it can be serious and scary at some point and at other scenes it'll make you laugh. And although they are in Malay language, many races enjoyed it and remember it till today. That is my aim in my films too. There are certain points about the films which I'd like to achieve, the balance between humour, horror, and the use of minimal techniques of the technologies of that time to achieve this. We aim to achieve the intended emotions by using mainly 1-2 shots per scene without much intercutting as well as using basic straight cuts and dissolves in the transitions. The actors also did well as for the old cinema scenes especially, we need them to do one continuous take per scene as Malay cinema of that time doesn't use much intercutting but instead emphasizes a lot on good performances. The cinematographer Lim Beng Huat also researched to have his lighting and camera techniques as close as possible to that era of film making.

For the other parts of the film which are set in the present day, I don't really have any particular influence or reference film but mainly I aimed to have all of my directing decisions to be motivated by the story. After rehearsals with the actors, I discussed with the cinematographer on the shots and it is nice that Beng Huat shares the same enthusiasm on moving the camera for the story. Beng Huat shares his interpretation of the scenes and we discussed ways to tell the story visually. Based on this I'll also modify the actors' blocking where needed. During editing, coloring and sound and music stages the team also based each creative decisions on moving the story forward.

Was it difficult shooting in Johor Bahru and the other outdoor locations? What were the challenges you faced?

CT: There are no film professionals in Johor! All the professional services that we need to support our film production are based up north in KL. We had such a hard time looking for such personnel in this part of Malaysia. In the end, most of our professional crew members are from Singapore.

Shooting in a foreign land, language, logistics, transport and accommodation naturally posed great challenges to the team. We were fortunate that the locals generally were rather friendly and tried to support our filming activities as best as they could. Some unhappiness due to inconveniences are bound to happen - after all, they're not used to seeing film crews pop up in their neighbourhoods, unlike KL - but we managed to resolve most issues that arose in the most amicable ways. At the end of the day, it was all worth it, because we wouldn't have been able to find better locations than those to fit the story so perfectly - definitely not in Singapore!

What were the most enjoyable moments of the shoot?

CT: To see the film forming into shape exactly as we envisioned it - the actors, the locations, all perfectly matching how it appeared in our heads, we knew while we were shooting that we were making a film that we would be very happy with.

ZUL: For me the most enjoyable moments of the shoot would be filming the movie screening scene at the village with all the villagers. We did this on my first day on this set and this is the scene with the most number of casts I have ever did. I am amazed at the villagers' enthusiasm at supporting our filming as during the screening scene, almost all the villagers came down to the field, even though we were showing just a blank screen. They were directed to give different expressions and I am delighted when they managed to pull off all the emotions we needed. Another interesting part of this scene is that we had a cow and a chicken to watch the film together with the villagers and it somehow manages to give a scared look while watching the movie on screen. Another memorable moment is when I begin editing the film and felt that all the shots just fits in place and feels just right.

How long was this film in the making? When did you start pre-production?

CT: We're not counting the time when it was originally hatched as a "Jaws" idea, right? If we count just from the time it was re-written as an "Ikan Bilis" movie, still, it took us more than a year from script to actual production. Location scouting and casting took us the most time, as you can imagine, as these played the most crucial parts in the film - the film either makes or breaks based on these two elements alone. We're glad we managed to land the perfect choices for both. How blessed we were! Again, as the father character in the film says, "Everything has its place." Everything in this film happened to find its place indeed!

You seem to have a very experienced cast and most of them put up very strong performances. Describe how you work with your actors.

CT: Credit really has to go to Zul for casting the perfect actors for all the roles in the film. The cast really made the characters alive! I'm ever so thankful for their wonderful work in this film.

ZUL: We began with auditioning quite a number of possible casts to find the suitable ones for the film and we are still thankful that many talented casts came by to attend our casting sessions. For the casting process, we sent them a part of the script and during the audition, I let them interpret the script and character themselves first and after that we did another round with me giving directions and lastly I gave them a random scene to audition their improvisation. Other than the acting abilities we also selected based on whether their physique fits the role. We also encouraged them to try for different roles in the film so that we can see which role they are more comfortable with. The young and adult Lat, Lat's parents, Nora and Zak are casted in Singapore, while the supporting village children and the crowd during the movie screening are from the kampong in Johor which we filmed at. The lady getting pulled underwater by the Ikan Bilis is from the village too as because we need her to be fully underwater, we need a diver and one who is familiar with the waters in the village for safety reasons. She happens to be one of the best lady divers in the village and she had no problem having to dive in and out multiple times for our different takes. We had rehearsal sessions to firstly break the ice among the actors, this is especially important for Lat and his parents so that their relationship with each other is believable. During the rehearsals, we would experiment different actions and directions for the scene based on the characters' behaviors and motivations to arrive at one that is right for the film. On set while filming if some ideas come up to improve a scene, we'll try it out whenever there is time to do so.

Find our more about the film 'Anchovies' on their Facebook Page:

http://www.facebook.com/anchoviesfilm

Somewhere towards the end of the film, one of the 3 subjects, Artist Tang Ling Nah sits alone in front of the TV set watching Prime Minister deliver the National Day Rally, filled with the usual dogma of needing to stay competitive in a changing world. The all-so-familiar National Day staple song ‘We are Singapore’ plays and Ling Nah finds herself inevitably joining in the chorus. It is not entirely clear what’s going on in her head and she seems to be sniffing a bit at the chorus of the song.

Ling Nah is a visual artist who has bought a HDB flat for herself because she needs personal space for her work as an artist, away from her parents. What’s interesting is that she is not quite the run-of-the-mill ‘married with kids’ profile that HDB flats seem to favour but displays a passion for Singapore measurable to the ones you see in the annual National Day Parades. To put it bluntly, her position as an artist makes this quite an oxy-moron.

This is what the film is really pitched. At first contact, the film seems like a clichéd study of HDB living with the familiar 3-stories structure. But watching it in more detail reveals it to be a more enlightened and targeted observation of some of the biggest ironies in what Singapore has branded as one of the world’s most successful public housing projects.

03-Flats faithfully and unobtrusively follows three single women who live alone in their HDB flat and captures snapshots of their everyday activities, sometimes mundane, sometimes glorious and sometimes with pockets of surprises. The 3 women, while not enough to offer a cross section of society or provide a CMI (Chinese, Malay, Indian) broad look at HDB living, presents quite a diverse set of characters with unique circumstances. These circumstances in fact make the film more ironic. Ling Nah, as mentioned is an artist and has transformed her flat into a art studio as well, somehow conjuring thoughts of art-studio-homes in cities like New York or Paris. Mums looking at her flat and the clutter will be nagging till the cows come home, even though Ling Nah is really quite a meticulous cleaner when it comes to doing her regular housework. Amy Tashiana, from the entertainment business, has brought Hollywood to the neighbourhood. From boudoir-looking drapes to patterned crockery to sequined cushions to delightful bouquets of flowers, one immediately forgets the original cell-like structure of these public housing units. The third character Mdm Sim Boon Ngoh lives a Spartan life alone in her flat with her furnishing down to the basic essentials, but we are given a back story of how her flat, when her mother was around used to be the venue of numerous family gatherings and Chinese New Year reunion dinners.

Interjected throughout the film are snippets of absolutist propagandist national TV broadcasts from the 60s of the public housing construction progress and achievements, as well as quotes from the various ministers rationalising the existence of these public housing projects and why they have taken this form. With spot-on comic timing, these snippets are immediately cut to the drab, uninspiring scenes of the current day HDB corridors and void decks with rectangles, cells and boxes galore. In fact, hese are just flashes of visual irony that set the tone for the main drift. The choice of the 3 women’s stories offer main meat in the director’s ironic gaze at HDB living. Together, they stand in defiance to the intentions of the government’s policy, not in an angry way, but with a huge grin.

This rather ‘peaceful’ subversion of the conventional HDB living unit is characteristic of the overriding directorial style of Lei Yuan Bin. One defining feature of the film is the lack of any direct talking head accounts from the characters. The film is built from footages of an ‘observing’ camera, probably hidden in the background, quietly documenting these characters in near-natural states. It might be precisely the total reliance on candid, un-staged activity shots that have forced the director to think harder about how to paint a more vivid picture of the characters’ lives without them telling it to the camera. These included capturing Amy at her work rehearsals and Ling Nah during her family time at her parents’ home. This treatment is meditative but its pacing suffers sometimes when some scenes seem repetitive or pointless.

For the loose grip the director exerts on the narrative, the film sometimes becomes a random stroll in the park and you forget what the film is trying to point at or if it is actually pointing at anything. For instance, Amy’s Hari Raya party and the lead-up to it has such an addictive ‘reality-TV’ draw to it, once can be forgiven for forgetting what the film was posturing at. The film subconsciously lures the voyeur out in all of us, beckoning to us to wonder what Mdm Sim is cooking for dinner, what Ling Nah is painting next and if the cat is going scratch Amy in her sleep. Before you can say ‘housework porn’, the film thankfully makes an effort to link these back to broader issues at play, with the National Day Rally scene (mentioned at the start of this review) being a pivoting point in the film. The pro-longed take and Ling Nah’s seemingly raw reactions to the Rally speech and song offer some closure on our understanding of her relationship to the space and this place she calls home. We are not sure where they stand in the race for economic advancement and in fact, they sometimes seem ‘orphaned’ by progress that is gushing through everyone’s lives, but the film makes one strong point, that Ling Nah, like Mdm Sim and Amy, all genuinely have their hearts anchored in these cell-like structures that they call home.

Review by Jeremy Sing

This film was screened at the recent Singapore Chinese Film Festival and premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2014. Read more about the making of this film in our interview with director Lei Yuan Bin here.

'And the Wind Falls's is a short film by He Shuming that was nominated for Best Cinematography in the recent Singapore Short Film Awards. But really, this film deserved awards in other categories as well, including script and performance. We catch up with He Shuming on the making of this short film.

Synopsis

Millie, a housekeeper in a small-town motel, spends thankless days cleaning up after others as she dreams of overcoming her past and regaining custody of her estranged daughter. When Millie discovers a large sum of money in one of the motel rooms, her apparent good fortune forces her to question the true meaning of redemption.
And The Wind Falls - OFFICIAL TRAILER #2 from And The Wind Falls on Vimeo.

To find out more about 'And the Wind Falls', please check out the following links:

Website: www.andthewindfalls.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/andthewindfalls

Twitter: www.twitter.com/andthewindfalls

Instagram: www.instagram.com/andthewindfalls

Your film presented a very interesting study of social demographics in the US. What inspired the story?

I had a conversation with a friend about finding yourself in a situation where you’re caught in a victimless crime and trying to get around it. What are the moral implications, what would one do, etc. Also, I had to start writing a script for my thesis but I was going nowhere. All I knew was I wanted to make a film fronted by a female protagonist.

One weekend, I drove to Joshua Tree, trying to write and had some time to myself. The housekeeper at the motel was the only person I chatted with, and we talked briefly about our lives, about what we do for a living and about our families. She’s around my age, a first generation Mexican-American who grew up in in Los Angeles. I would say all these little details formed a basis in my head to make this film, and it sort of evolved from there.

There’s a lot of talk of late, about having more diversity in film and television. Being a non-white filmmaker residing in the States, I tend to lean towards creating lead characters that present a more normal representation of who we see on screen.

Are housekeepers are a treasure trove of stories? How close to reality is your story in the film?

Oh yes, they certainly are. There’re all sorts of people going in and out of motels, and housekeepers clean up after them. Housekeepers always seem invisible but they have such interesting observations. I find that the one person that no one really thinks about is often the center of the universe.

The story in the film is completely fictional, and developed over the course of a year before we started pre-production.

What was the casting process like? How did you find your actors?

We worked with our casting director, Jennifer Ricchiazzi for this film. When we met for the first time before hiring her, we talked about the script and the actors we were looking at; we had a dream list of actors that we think are suited for the roles, basically actors I imagined to be the characters when I wrote the script and Jennifer went out and short list actors for the auditions.

The casting process took about over slightly a month. We had callbacks for actors we liked and they did scenes together. Actors who came to read for the lead role of the housekeeper had to do chemistry reads with actors who were called back to play her daughter and mother-in-law. We went straight into rehearsal about 2 weeks before shooting. It was the shortest amount of time I had working with actors before shooting.

How did you work with your actors? Especially in your position as a foreigner directing a film rooted in localised issues.

Because of the short amount of time we had before the final cast were attached to the film, I workshopped in class with actors I had worked previously. I’ve learned so much from these actors, who were so giving and intelligent. The sessions were intense, but it helped with rewrites and allowed me to think of what I needed to talk about during actual rehearsals, which we didn’t have a lot of.

We had our first table read after our main cast were locked and had a discussion about the story and the characters. Leana Chavez, who played Millie, was such a giving and dedicated actor. We spent plenty of time talking during our rehearsal sessions, sharing experiences that they’ve heard, what would you do if you were the character, etc. I’ve learned so much from all my actors on this film and I think it’s important to look at the roots of what these characters are going through as human beings and realizing how universal the experiences can be.

Is this your first short film made in the US? How different is it making a film in the US as compared to Singapore?

This is my fourth short film made here. With And The Wind Falls, I felt like we had an army of people working together, like a well-oiled machine. There are definitely more rules designed to protect everyone working on a production. It’s just the way the industry is set up over decades of filmmaking, especially in Los Angeles. The permits, union rules, labour laws, etc. It’s very admirable, to be honest.

Also, this is the first time I budgeted reshoots for a film! We did pick up shots, added scenes and reshot an entire scene over the course of 2 days. It was such a luxury.

But other than that, I think the fascinating thing about filmmaking is wherever you shoot, cinema is our common language.

What were the greatest challenges you faced in making this film?

Before coming here, I was used to a certain kind of storytelling. Maybe it’s the sensibilities in cinema that I was accustomed to. I was used to taking my time with a scene, not wanting to rush anything and being a little too passive with my characters. I think with this film I wanted to be less passive, and I don’t know if I’ve succeeded completely.

Writing the script was a challenge, too. From the very first drafts, we had to decide if she was going to return the money or keep it for herself. Whatever she chose to do in the end poses all sorts of questions about why she did it in the first place, so it was really digging deep into the truth about her motivation and realizing there really isn’t a right or wrong answer, but I still need to decide her course of action and justify it.

We had a test audience when we had our first director’s cut, which helped us decide what made sense and what didn’t. It helped because we were so involved through the course of development and production that sometimes we lose track of whether the film told the story we really wanted to tell. And sitting through the honest critiques from a theatre of test audience can be one of the most gut-wrenching experiences a filmmaker can have. But it helped because their notes confirmed what we needed to work on for the reshoot and in our edit.

All the hell we go through as filmmakers only helped to serve the film.

It is short film making season. We’ve lost count of the number of competitions going on! Here’s another one with for those in school or film school!

2015 marks the inaugural National Youth Film Awards (NYFA) at *SCAPE. NYFA aims to identify and celebrate talents from the industry and Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) offering film-related and animation courses.

The competition will be assessed by a Jury made up of well-known names in the media industry. Various awards will be presented to the winners at the Award Cerermony, some of which include Best Cinematography, Best Sound Design, Best Documentary, and Best Animated Film. Workshops and screenings will also be held for youths who are interested in the film industry and want to expand their knowledge about filmmaking.

Here is the online submission form:

http://www.scape.sg/nyfa/submission

Here are the prizes!

Best Picture Award1

Trophy and S$2000 cash

Inclusive of apprenticeship and mentorship opportunities with mm2 Entertainment Pte Ltd

Best Animated Film Award

(presented by Animagine Pte Ltd)

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Documentary Film Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Direction Award

(presented by mm2 Entertainment Pte Ltd)

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Inclusive of apprenticeship and mentorship opportunities with mm2 Entertainment

Best Cinematography Award

(presented by Shooting Gallery Productions Pte Ltd)

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Inclusive of apprenticeship and mentorship opportunities with Shooting Gallery Asia

Best Screenplay Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Editing Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Visual Effects Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Sound Editing Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Sound Mixing Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Original Music Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Performance Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Production Design Award

Trophy and S$1000 cash

Best Overall School Award5

Trophy

Jury

Some FAQS

Who can participate in this competition?
National Youth Film Awards (NYFA) is open to full-time students who are under the age of 35 (before 31 December 2015), and are currently enrolled in a media-related course/module at any Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) in Singapore.

NYFA is open to all citizens and permanent residents of SingaporE.

Graduates (between 15 May 2014 and 14 May 2015) from the above media-related course/modules are also eligible for participation.

What are media-related course/modules?
A media-related course/module includes (but not limited to) the following fields: Acting, Animation, Cinematography, Documentary Filmmaking, Production Design, Screenwriting, Sound Design, Sound Mixing, Video Production, Video & Sound Editing and Visual Effects.

What are the works qualified to enter this competition?
Short films (narrative, documentary, animation) are eligible.

What is the maximum length of the short film to be qualified?
The maximum duration is 20 minutes including opening title and ending credits.

Can I submit works that I produced during my internship?
Entries must be produced during the course your enrolment. Entries produced during an attachment and/or internship period with an organisation or agency will not be eligible for submission.

How many entries can I submit?
There is no limit in the number of entries that an eligible Applicant can submit. Kindly make sure that your entries comply with the Terms and

Han Fengyu's Last Trip Home has garnered several accolades, from a feature at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival's Cinefondation Selection, to a screening at the Singapore International Film Festival last year. In March this year, the film was deemed Best Picture at the 6th Singapore Short Film Awards in March 2015.

SINdie catches up with Fengyu to find out more about the inspiration and process behind his award-winning film.

Synopsis:

A father and son, Chinese immigrants, want to go back home with their only remaining possession—their car.

Trailer:

Last Trip Home Trailer

What was the casting process for your film like? Did you cast the characters of Father and Son together? I understand that the Son is played by a newcomer, Zhang Zheng Yang. What was their dynamic like?

HF: We street casted Zheng Yang which was a process that some of the lecturers had a problem with and we found the father (Huang He) through a friend in the industry, Bee Thiam. Huang He used to do opera. Finding Zheng Yang is a miraculous story, my producer Adar Ng decides that we should pay NTU a visit and it was at Macdonalds that we found him. My DP, Lee Sze Wei felt that he looks like a grown up version of Yang Yang from Yi Yi by Edward Yang. And we approach him, he has no experience and knows nothing about cinema.

When Adar asked him if he is interested to come down for an audition, he did not exactly agree. On the audition day, we almost cancelled the audition as we could not find anybody who fit, but eventually he came. We gave him scenarios and instructions and he just moved and did what he needs to do on his own. He has a certain rhythm in his movement, that's when I then decided to go with him. I abandoned my previous script and rewrote for him.

Huang He took care of Zheng Yang as if he was his son. It worked well because Huang He has some experience and Zheng Yang has none, it was a very nurturing relationship.

The film comes across as very meticulously made in all aspects, from the acting to the cinematography. Did you set out to work in this very exacting way? What was the process like?

HF: The film was made in this manner due to a few reasons and none of them override the other. Firstly, during that period of time my DP, Sze Wei and I were into Tsai Ming Liang. Prior to that we shot many things together with many different styles and at that stage we were into Mr Tsai. Secondly, it was out of practicality, Zheng Yang only has limited hours with us due to dormitory regulations. By shooting almost one shot for one scene we consciously reduce the number of set-ups, and focus on important aspects like performances and the crafting of scenes. Thirdly, we were shooting as minimally as possible, making use of what the location can offer us instead of "changing" the location to suit us.

I do believe that style is derived from two aspects, one, what is the most suitable for the film and two, practicality. So yeah, the style is out of necessity.

Are there any films or directors whose work influenced you, shaped the direction of Last Trip Home?

HF: If I want to be a bastard I would say "The entire film history influenced me and shaped my direction as a director, as an artist and as a man because I believe that's just the way it is." But I think I shall spare myself from that reputation and answer honestly. Edward Yang is my saviour. Lars Von Trier shown me what is cinema. Michael Haneke taught me how audience are like. Tsai Ming Liang taught me the craft to engage. Dardennes taught me characters and salvation. P.T Anderson taught me intensity. Those mentioned above are just the contemporaries who are old but still alive. The list will go on forever if I continue, Tarkovsky taught me self. Bergman taught me love. Kubrick taught me epic. Ozu taught me life. Godard taught me form. Seriously if I would to go on, this will look like a thesis paper.

You've said before that this film is not "about family, [but] … about love" (SGIFF interview). What kind of distinction did you draw between the two, and why? How did that translate into the on-screen portrayal of the father-son relationship?

HF: I don't really understand this question. I did not draw any distinction between the two. I meant that family has love and love includes family but the film is about love thematically and that's what I am trying to explore.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in making this film?

HF: The biggest challenges in making any films for me are the same. "Why does this not work?"

What was your experience at Cannes Film Festival's Cinéfondation like? Did you hear any responses to your film when it screened there?

HF: Some people like the film, some people hate the film, some did not understand a thing, and in that aspect I think the film has done what it should have done to my audience. Cinefondation is great, it caused a lot of confusion, anger and generated my next project due to these emotions.

Are there upcoming plans to screen the film locally or elsewhere?

HF: No, I had enough of the film. I had enough talking about it, watching it and hanging onto it anymore. Really, it's time to do something else. I must move on.

#NOSTALGIA is a salon session designed to critically examine the phenomenon of "nostalgia" in Singapore cinema and within the psyche of the Singaporean society, in light of our SG50 celebrations.

Four esteemed speakers from varying film backgrounds will come together to share their perspectives and initiate a dialogue with the audience through a series of presentations and a panel discussion.

Speakers: Chua Beng Huat Ben Slater Zhang Wenjie Tan Bee Thiam Moderator: Karen Chan (AFA)

Presented by Asian Film Archive

Supported by Filmgarde Cineplex

FREE ADMISSION

REGISTER: reframe-nostalgia.peatix.com
** Event is strictly by registration only as limited seating is available **
9 May Saturday 230 - 4pm Filmgarde Cineplex, Level 5, Bugis+ 201 Victoria Street
Singapore 188067

***

ABOUT REFRAME

An initiative by the Asian Film Archive, REFRAME is a series that aims to bring together diverse audiences and the film community at large through an innovative range of programmes, encouraging dialogue and examining topics surrounding cinema and the moving image.

By asking hard questions and re-looking at trends and issues critically, the series will construct meaningful frameworks that bring forth multi-perspective viewpoints and an increased appreciation of film and culture.

***

ABOUT THE PANEL

MODERATOR: KAREN CHAN

Karen Chan is the Executive Director of the Asian Film Archive (AFA). A pioneer staff of the AFA from 2006, Karen oversaw the growth, preservation and curation of the AFA’s collection. Under her leadership, the AFA had its first collection of films inscribed into the UNESCO Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Register. Karen teaches courses on film preservation and literacy, Singapore cinema history and social memory, and has worked with many ...schools, junior colleges and tertiary institutions. She currently serves on the Executive Council of the South East Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association. Her prior work experiences include teaching English and History, working with the National Archives of Singapore and the Natural History Museum in New York City.

SPEAKER #1: CHUA BENG HUAT

Chua Beng Huat is a Singaporean sociologist. He is a Provost Professor and the Head of the Department of Sociology at National University of Singapore, and concurrently the Cluster Leader of the Cultural Studies in Asia program at the Asia Research Institute, NUS. He received his PhD from York University, Canada, and before joining NUS, he was director of research at the Housing and Development Board.
...

His research areas include housing and urban studies, cultural studies in Asia, East Asian pop culture and comparative politics in Southeast Asia. He is a founding co-editor of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. With his organizing and publication efforts, he has helped to develop a research community of scholars who are engaged in analyzing Asia pop music, film and television dramas.

SPEAKER #2: BEN SLATER

Ben Slater is a writer. His articles on cinema have been featured in many newspapers, magazines, journals, catalogues, websites and books internationally, including Cahiers du Cinema, Screen International, Indiewire, The Independent and The Straits Times. He is the author of Kinda Hot: The Making of Saint Jack in Singapore (Marshall Cavendish: 2006) and the editor of 25: Histories & Memories of the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF: 2014). He is the co-screenwriter of the feature film Camera (2014) and has script edited several feature films including Helen (2009), HERE (2010) and Mister John (2013). In recent years he’s been researching American and European film production in Singapore and has written about this extensively on his website www.sporeana.blogspot.com.

SPEAKER #3: ZHANG WENJIE

Zhang Wenjie is a film programmer. From 2003 to 2005, he headed The Substation Moving Images film programme where he initiated First Take and Singapore Short Cuts, two of the longest running and most established film series in Singapore. From 2005 to 2008, and 2009 to 2014, Wenjie headed the National Museum of Singapore Cinematheque, where he programmed and organised major retrospectives such as In His Time: The Films of Edward Yang and ...Majulah! The Film Music of Zubir Said and also spearheaded the Cinematheque Quarterly film journal.

In 2009, he was co-director of the 22nd instalment of SGIFF and from 2010 to 2012, he was part of the project team that led the restoration of Usmar Ismail’s 1954 classic After the Curfew, which premiered at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. In 2013, he organised the first Film Restoration School Asia in Singapore in collaboration with Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, Cineteca di Bologna and L’Immagine Ritrovata. He is currently Festival Director of the Singapore International Film Festival.

SPEAKER #4: TAN BEE THIAM

Tan Bee Thiam is an award-winning filmmaker whose works have garnered critical acclaim internationally. As a producer, he has worked on more than ten independent films, including 03-Flats (Best Documentary at Salaya), Snakeskin (Jury Prize at Torino Film Festival), As You Were (Tokyo International Film Festival). As a director, he is interested in adaptations. Kopi Julia, adapted from the short story of Faizal Salaiman, is his tribute t...o the horror films made in the 50s. It was selected by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for the Sharjah Biennale.

He recently completed his debut feature film, an adaption of Haresh Sharma and Alvin Tan’s Fundamentally Happy, shot by renown cinematographer Christopher Doyle. He's currently working on Glen Goei's new feature film, Pontianak (selected for Berlinale and Hong Kong project markets) and his second feature film about Tiong Bahru. He is also the editor of the Cinemas of Asia journal, film curator for the Singapore International Festival of Arts and has served as jury member in film festivals in Berlin and Golden Horse. In 2009, he was honoured as National University of Singapore Outstanding Young Alumni.

Credit: georgetownpenang.com

The Singapore Film Society, organizer of the Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition, is pleased to co-operate with George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), Penang, Malaysia, to organise a short film exchange programme in May 2015.

The Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition, and the Kaki Lima Short Film Competition, were both inaugurated in 2014. Both competitions share a common objective to nurture up-and-coming filmmaking talents to document and make short films that celebrate the cultural and historical diversity and richness of both Singapore and Penang, respectively.

The objective of this Heritage Partnership is build a relationship to promote a cultural exchange of films. Our common goals are to foster goodwill and long term friendship between the two organisations, so that we can work together in our efforts to raise heritage awareness of Penang and Singapore.

There will be three screenings each of the respective prize-winning works, firstly in Singapore, and followed by in Penang. The screening locations reveal a desire to reach out to a wide community to watch and appreciate the heritage and culture of either cities.

The Penang filmmakers and representatives will be in Singapore from 15 to 17 May. They will attend a closed door screening of the Kaki Lima Short Films for the film and communication students of Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

The Press is welcomed to attend this screening, and interview the visiting Kaki Lima filmmakers / representatives on 15 May, at either PARKROYAL on Pickering Hotel (2pm to 3pm), or at Ngee Ann Polytechnic (6pm to 7pm) after the screening if you are interested.

This will be followed by two public screenings at the following locations:

15 May, Friday, 8pm, Artistry Café (17 Jalan Pinang, Singapore 199149)

https://www.facebook.com/events/788081587935471/

16 May, Saturday, 10am, URA Centre, Function Room, Level 5 (45 Maxwell Road, Singapore 069118)

http://heritagefest.sg/events/kaki-lim-short-film-competition

The screenings are free of charge and no registration is required.

The Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition enters its second edition in 2015. We are still opened for entries of short films that portray Singapore’s rich heritage and culture. Kindly visit the following site for more info:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/singapore-heritage-short-film-competition/hsfc-2015-open-call/316159661912742

For more information, please contact:
Chew Keng Kiat

Project Manager, Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition

Email Address: kengkiat@sfs.org.sg

Contact Number: +65 9790 3886

Credit: onlypenang.com

More about Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition

The first Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition was organised in 2014, by the Singapore Film Society, with the initial support of the National Heritage Board’s Heritage Participation Grant, as well as the Lee Foundation.

The competition is targeted towards students and young talents, to encourage them to venture out and discover stories of heritage from the many associations and societies that have a long history in Singapore, of which they will have accumulated many rich stories and culture that resonates with the birth and growth of our nation and society.

The criteria of the competition is that participants need to be 30 years old and below. The submitted short films are to be no longer than 10 minutes long. A participating team can make up of 2 to 5 members, of which half or more needs to be Singaporeans, or have lived in Singapore for a reasonable period of time.

The 2014 finalist films covered a wide range of heritage topics including Lorong Buangkok; a Taichi quan-practising father; aspects of Peranakan Culture; different types of Chinese Opera; a young people theatre troupe; and lion-dance troupes.

The results of the first competition, and an award ceremony, took place on 24 July 2014, as part of the Singapore Heritagefest 2014. This was followed by a succession of public screenings, at galleries, museums, libraries, and campuses, across the island, between August to December 2014. These series of free screenings further encourage people from all walks of our communities, young and old, of different creed, gender and race, to watch these films in a communal experience.

The competition is organized again in 2015, with the support of the SG50 Celebration Fund, as well as the continuous support of the Lee Foundation, and the Chinese Language & Cultural Fund by the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Association.

The Penang trip to screen the Singapore Heritage Short Films in George Town is made possible with the support of the Singapore International Foundation.

For more details, visit our:

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sghsfc/

Website: http://www.sfs.org.sg/shsfc

Credit: penang.attractionsinmalaysia.com

More about Kaki Lima Short Film Competition

Kaki Lima Short Film Competition (KLSFC) is a cultural initiative by George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), to provide filmmakers with a platform to express their creativity through film in the areas of heritage, arts and culture. The aim of this competition is to unearth more young talent to capture the precious elements of Penang through film-making.

GTWHI was established by the Penang State Government as the State Heritage Agency in April 2010 to spearhead efforts to ensure that George Town’s legacy will not be lost. It is an organisation dedicated to protecting, promoting and preserving George Town as a sustainable city.

GTWHI organised the inaugural KLSFC in 2014, in conjunction with the Heritage Celebration 2014. The aim of this competition is to create awareness for locals to conserve and protect George Town, and to ensure that the legacy of George Town is well-conserved. As for GTWHI, it is also to promote the tangible and intangible culture and heritage of the community, as well as to unearth local talents and fully utilize their creativity in promoting and conserving their heritage.

The winning filmmakers of both categories, as well as representatives of KLSFC and GTWHI, will be present at the Singapore screenings. Their local stay is generously supported by PARKROYAL on Pickering, a PARKROYAL collection hotel.

The KLSFC screenings in Singapore will comprise the following films:

Category A: Open

Grand Prize Winner: Irama Terakhir, by Ridzawan Abdullah

There are many Songkok Makers in Malaysia but he is the only one left in Penang. He is still using the same old sewing machine that produce a rhythm that he heard since he was 12 years old. The rhythm has become part of his life. It is just like music to his soul, a rhythm that drives him to continue while the others are giving up. He is the Last Songkok Maker in Penang. Will the rhythm of his machine continue?

1^st Runner Up: Perhaps, You’re Still Unaware, by Hong Yan Yee

Magnificent views. Charismatic locals. Breath taking island. Journey through this charming little island as a Penangnite offers his insight on the hidden marvels of Penang that are hiding in plain sight: the people of Penang …

2^nd Runner Up: My Island’s Best Kept Secret, by Lau Ming Yau

People always tell me that, Penang best kept secret is the people living on the island. I never believe so, not until I get to meet up with an Indian lady who is a fruit seller, Mr Razak the electrician, Momo who works in a Bagel Shop and the wonder kid who love to wander himself in the garden.

Category B: University and College Students

Grand Prize Winner: Love Lane, by Kelvin Tan Kian

A story about people in the olden days that lived in Love Lane who had affairs and kept their mistresses there. There are twists in the plot filled with happiness, sadness and conflicts happening throughout the story. The short film comes with a brief documentary of Love Lane.

1^st Runner Up: My Mother Tongue, by Peh Shu Min

“十五瞑，火金星，请人客，来吃茶。”What’s that? Joel doesn’t have any idea too so he decided to find his long lost grandma whom he never met. What will be the secret of his mother tongue?

2^nd Runner Up: The Last Show, by Annie Lim Ean Nee

Currently, there is only one heritage theatre left in Penang, which is Odeon Cinema, but it will be closed in July 2014. Thus this video is dedicated specially to the Odeon Cinema and its family, it will also be a memory to Penangnites.

If there is a filmmaker who exemplifies visual poetry more than the others, it would be Liao Jiekai. In the same veins of ‘Red Dragonflies’, ‘As You Were’, while dealing with themes of time and loss, is a breathtaking attempt at layering our perception of the everyday and taking things out of their ordinary context and putting them in a somewhat strange and surrealistic setting (even though they are actually real in the film). I may actually call him a surrealist-realist but that’s where his films seem to be pitched at – fables told in realist strokes.

‘As You Were’ is part fable part naturalism, though the fable quotient is heavier. The film is presented in three parts – ‘The Hill of Misfits’, ‘Song of Tomorrow’ and ‘As You Were’, but all seamlessly joined together by overlapping sub-plots, character journeys and motifs. The core of the film is built around a fable, albeit one built of historical realities. St John’s Island is the centerpiece in the film. The film stays faithful to its historical roots of being a quarantine centre, penal colony and home for exiles, by being a reform camp for delinquents. The whole of ‘The Hill of Misfits’ is dedicated to establishing this premise, in which the audience is taken through military drills and mundane labour in a physical setting that seems lost in time and distinct from the modern metropolis that Singapore is. In the this chapter, with the eventual escape of one of the delinquents, who swims over, mainland Singapore is portrayed as a kind of promised land or gold mine.

This relationship between mainland Singapore and St John’s Island seems reversed in the second act ‘Song of Tomorrow’, in which the island is portrayed as an escape from Singapore, relentless in its pace of transformation. Peiling visits Guo Hui, her childhood sweetheart whom is a counselor in the reform camp at St John’s Island. It is a long-awaited reunion as they have not met for 20 years. Most of the time on the island, Peiling seems caught between a mood of yearning for something lost and also fearing for the unfamiliar. Taking us through some unchartered waters and untrodden paths on the island (which is actually a visual treat in the film), we escape with her into a world that is begging for time to stop. Her journey is also delightfully interjected with flashbacks of her days in primary school with Guo Hui. In particular, the scene with them as children floating used stamps in basins of water stands out as a poignant reminder of an iconic fragment of our past.

At this stage, it feels like the film is getting closer to the point it is trying to make but yet between this and the full picture, is a road ahead filled with a dozen smoke bombs. In one of the scenes in ‘Song of Tomorrow’ Guo Hui chides Peiling for always never completing what she wants to say. The film seems to echo the same disposition, taking a ‘touch-and-go’ approach through the characters’ individual journeys. Think of it as a dream, in which unexpected encounters titillate, subvert, excite and intrigue you, but you are never brought close enough or to a point of lucidity to crack the code. The identities of the delinquents in the first act are kept a mystery and it is not even clear if their presence in Acts 2 and 3 is real or simply figments of the main characters’ imaginations. Even the identities of the main characters are kept slightly amorphous, with the patchy character exposition, causing the characters to seemingly ‘float’ along with the tide of the narrative and the thematic exploits of the director.

Nevertheless, the blurred timelines, the loose spatial references and the disjointed memories do contribute to some undeniable aesthetic qualities in the film. There is something intriguing about loosely intertwining the natural beauty of the island with the dark mysterious regimental past of the island. There is also something hypnotic about characters criss-crossing segments challenging our linear view of the course of events in the film. In Act 2, ‘Song of Tomorrow’ when the delinquents surreptitiously appear at the corner of the screen through Peiling’s room’s window, one wonders if it is just a transient ghost of the past or has Peiling walked herself into the fable the film tries to create? Like a mirage of the Act 2, in Act 3, when Guo Hui is seated next to his new found flame, Cheryl, at the camp fire, Peiling appears also seated opposite the fire in a shot that seems partly imagined but also real, making us wonder if we were done with Act 2.

In ‘As You Were’, the final act, the film finally tries to cut the rope off the complicated tangle created in the first two acts (note that it does not try to disentangle) between past and present and fable and reality. The new girl, Cheryl, who appears in Guo Hui’s life is a breath of fresh air both to Guo Hui and the audiences as well for her endearing screen presence and beguiling voice. Her trip to the island, which by now seems to have shed its detention camp past (or is it still there?), helps bring some closure to Guo Hui’s emotional entanglement with the past, maybe a tad too surendipitously. The point of this chapter is moving on. In honesty, the way the film has meandered around in the character interactions and its dealings with the past and memories has made it difficult to do so. But the bright spark in this segment, apart from being entertained by Cheryl’s singing, is a metaphorical off-shoot at the end, in which a young boy, testing his eyesight at the optometrist’s, is asked to take a walk out of the clinic into the open corridor outside. The POV (point-of-view) shot awakens as much as it affirms. Almost like waking up from the director’s long and artful hypnosis.

Review by Jeremy Sing

This film was screened recently at the 5th Singapore Chinese Film Festival, the 25th Singapore International Film Festival last Dec and has its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

As You Were Trailer from JIEKAI LIAO on Vimeo.

Rubbers, with its tagline as ‘Singapore’s funniest sex comedy’ seemed somehow a very strange combination of words. A sex comedy that was very much produced, written, directed and acted locally - perhaps Singaporean society may no longer be as conservative as it once was!

The film was absolutely unapologetic and embraced its subject matter whole heartedly right from the in-your-face opening track sequence! Kudos to director and writer Han Yew Kwang for his boldness in style and commitment to his film. In fact on closer inspection, he was involved in many aspects of the film beyond writing and directing to even acting, editing and composing the soundtrack. This certainly resulted in a consistent feel, look and vision.

The film stitches together three stories - Balloons about a long suffering married couple played by Marcus Chin and Catherine Sng; Nightmare a condom caught womanizer (Alaric Tay) and his imaginary AV star (Oon Shu Ann); and The Plumber an unlucky in love single lady (Yeo Yann Yann) who resorted to rather creative means to seduce a hunky plumber named Thor (Julian Hee) - hammer and red towel included! - on Valentine's Day.

While the comedic moments did at times heavily rely on visual and implied gags to work, there was certainly a good balance between cringe worthy and heartfelt moments to engage the audience. In Balloons, the rekindling of old romantic school crush love gave the characters a back story for stronger emotional connection. Although serious issues such as prostitution was glossed over. In Nightmare, most if not all comedic moments were very much applied through atypical situations - the three attempts to get to a hospital by his car, her bike or disguised as a lion dance troupe is just one such example! The Plumber had the most zany array of situations from her very creative range of seduction techniques, a full on argument with a life sized condom packet to what must be one of the most romantic ways to change a lightbulb!

Certainly an entertaining afternoon spent in the cinema. Impressive was the fearlessness of the actors (Yeo Yann Yann, Oon Shu Ann and Alaric Tay in particular) who had to execute some of the rather intricate and carefully positioned shots. The casting was particularly well done. Not only were main characters well portrayed, supporting actors with cameo appearances all made significant contributions to the movie in their own way. Yeo Yann Yann, already a well deserved household name, certainly did not disappoint by displaying additional versatility here in a different more playful role - nevertheless she imbued her character with a 3 dimensional persona and grounding in what was otherwise a rather simple storyline. The mutual trust of both director and actor was very evident especially when executing some of the more creative moments of the script! Special mention to both Alaric Tay and Oon Shu Ann for their delightful moments. Alaric has always had a strong scene stealing ability and it was refreshing to watch him in longer scenes here rather than usual cutaways. Building on a portfolio of theatre work, Shu Ann's strong impersonation skills and performance here was near taken for granted - fearless is the word that comes to mind.

With such strong casting and visual feel, expectations were slowly raised throughout the film. Strangely however, one left the cinema not quite fully satisfied as while it was an enjoyable and fun afternoon there was a need for something more. Perhaps it comes down to the strength of the underlying stories themselves. This was certainly a weakness in the film. While individually each story was interesting, the sum of the parts did not add up. Perhaps it was because they did not contain elements that were particularly complex or new. At times there were constant reminders of scenes from other movies - condoms as balloons, showering fully clothed and even similarities to a memorable Selma Blair scene from The Sweetest Thing. This immediately invoked comparisons. Additionally there was no strong connecting thread between the stories other than the use of condoms as a theme.

 In summary, while perhaps not the next award winning film, it is still a little gem that provided many laughs on a lazy afternoon.

Review by Ivan Choong

If you are keen, go behind the scenes of 'Rubbers' in our interview with Han Yew Kwang done earlier in the year here.

Here’s your chance to win some prizes without making a film! But watching one. This year marks the third season of ciNE65 and the organisers Nexus (www.nexus.gov.sg) are giving out some lovely prizes for voting for your favourite films with the Audience Choice Awards!

With the theme “Believing• Home”, a record number of 230 films have been submitted for the competition and we are inviting you to vote for your Favourite Film, Favourite Actor and Favourite Actress from 15 May to 11 Jun 2015.

The prizes include a GoPro Hero 4, Universal Studios Singapore tickets, 2D1N staycation and movie vouchers! Voting is available via our website (www.cine65.sg) or SMS (see instructions below)

In addition, ciNE65 is giving out an additional bonus prize just for SINdie readers - a Diane F+ Camera worth $150. To win this, simply tell us which ciNE65 Audience Choice short film you are voting for and why. The best answer wins! To post your answers, simply go to our facebook page www.facebook.com/SINdieOnly and lookout for the contest post!

Here are the instructions for Voting for ciNE65 Audience Choice Short Films

Here are two ways to vote from 15 May to 11 Jun 2015.

1. Vote via www.cine65.sg (Facebook login required)

2. Vote for your choice via an SMS to 76677. Each person is allowed to vote for one Favourite Film, one Favourite Actor and one Favourite Actress. Standard SMS charges apply. Format : Cine65 FB Choice NRIC Name Example: Cine65 FB FF1 S1234567A Alvin Tan

*Choice are indicated in red font

	Favourite Film	Favourite Actor	Favourite Actress
1	FF01 Blk 401	FAR1 Ken (Shrey Bhargava) from Clerk Ken	FAS1 Mother (Kelly Lim) from I’m Home
2	FF02 Dedication	FAR2 Boy (Joshua Ho) from Treasure	FAS2 Mother (Beverly Wong) from This is Home
3	FF03 Family Heirloom	FAR3 Andrew (Le Shiong) from Homeground	FAS3 Ah Ma (Beatrice Chien) from No place like home
4	FF04 Home Brewed	FAR4 Adult Ah Leong (Huang Shi Nan) from Home Brewed	FAS4 Mei Qing (Madeline Lok) from Reminisce
5	FF05 Home-made	FAR5 Old man Ah Chai (Tye Par Mok) from Meaning of Home	FAS5 Old lady Ah Lian (Lily Ong Siew Ling) from Meaning of home
6	FF06 Our promise, our belief	FAR6 Rajan (R. Sommasundram) from VOTE	FAS6 Pushpa (N. Anchalai) from VOTE
7	FF07 SEEING	-	-
8	FF08 Sightless	-	-
9	FF09 Unwavering	-	-
10	FF10 Wet Market	-	-

As the dystopian drama unfolds within the grounds of the eponymous fictional college Faeryville, I begin to suspect that this dystopia is in reality a lot closer to home. My suspicions are confirmed as The Nobodies, the film’s plucky outcasts, go to the college’s canteen for lunch only for bullies to upset their filled lunch trays for the kicks of it. If they were truly students of that college, they would be secretly relieved as the true face of said canteen is Canteen B of NTU, a local version of a college dining hall doomed to never serve decent food. In my four years as a student of the real NTU, I have avoided Canteen B not due to the fear of running into my nemesis like The Nobodies, but because that canteen itself is my nemesis.

As a local viewer, this familiarity with the landscape of a local university becomes all the more unintentionally amusing given the foreignness of Faeryville’s society. Fraternities rule over the college though we don’t get any suggestion of exactly how these frat boys contribute to the school’s reputation to justify the authorities’ bias. No one bats an eye to Poe and gang getting high in public and perhaps its widely accepted within the college that everyone smokes pot to deal with student life. I’m guessing that the liberal Americanization of college life is for the purpose of the film’s international distribution. Yet sometimes I forget and during one of the violent beat downs between the frat boys played by huge Westerners and The Nobodies played by smaller Asians, the first thing that comes to my mind is, ‘Why are they letting these exchange students be such toolbags to the local students?’ It goes to show that it will take more than the draping of banners and the erecting of a giant Mother Mary look-a-like statue to convincingly transform an Asian university.

Nonetheless, I really appreciate the attempt at making this film an authentic college story by keeping the important action within the college grounds. It is as if Faeryville’s landscape becomes a fifth Nobody; the only sane man calmly absorbing its peers’ melodrama. I like that the gang is often seen in places where students actually hang out at such as the study areas, the area outside the lecture theatres and various spots in the halls of residence. Yet perhaps it is the film’s maintenance of the intimacy with the physical Faeryville which undercuts the escalation of conflict within it. While the college is presented as the source of threats which The Nobodies face, none of them make any moves to distance themselves from it and have a life outside school. Multiple characters recognize that graduation is a solution to their problems and the film misses the opportunity to explore that this is not the case. As seen from the scene where a faceless figure of authority bars Laer and his sexually abused mother from moving away, there is a dystopia beyond campus grounds, one which possibly makes the dystopia within Faeryville preferable.

If you have to suffer in school, you would be lucky if you could suffer with friends. For me, the most believable character that you might have befriended or at least form an acquaintanceship with is the enigmatic Laer. His rather buff physique would make him a hit in orientation camps and his laconic speech would influence his crowd to hang on to his every word. But in real life, his type would be with the cool kids instead of the ‘loser’ group.

At the core of it, what makes it hard to root for The Nobodies is not that they don’t have a fighting chance of becoming winners, but that there is little heroism in their fight as underdogs. There is a moment when their plan to get back to the frat boys by implanting a fart bomb ends up stopping the frat boys from sexually assaulting a college girl. The Nobodies ultimately run away, triumphant and scot free, without a thought of empowering others outside of their clique.

Review by Joseline Yu.

The 3 presenters (from left: Tan Bee Thiam, Ben Slater and Professor Chua Beng Huat) at #NOSTALGIA compare notes at the event.

There is something I would call the ‘nostalgia bone’ in some people. Especially among filmmakers, we seem to always be delighted at the sight of something like an old television set from the 60s. And we will find some way to put it in shot, somewhere. Many of us will think of the films of Royston Tan on the mention of nostalgia, given the number of beaded curtains and kopitiam-style dining sets we have seen in his film. But in fact, there are a lot more out there ‘guilty’ of nostalgia.

The Asian Film Archive has started what seems to be the first official discussion on our obsession with nostalgia in film. This kicked off at Fiilmgarde at Bugis Plus on 9 May at an event called #NOSTALGIA. See event details here. 3 personalities, not all from the film industry, came forward to share what they thought about the treatment of nostalgia in film and our love for it. They included Head of Department of Sociology Professor Chua Beng Huat, writer Ben Slater, who has written many essays on films from this region as well as filmmaker and producer Tan Bee Thiam. A fourth speaker Zhang Wenjie could not make it for the event. This discussion on nostalgia is the first in their new REFRAME series of discussions that they hope to engage the public in.

A great deal of time was spent trying to define nostalgia. Ben slater, alluded the term to an epiosde in history in which British soldiers who could not go home from a war had aching feelings for home. Hence, the element of pain in the meaning of nostalgia. Then there was also an attribution to a medical condition, something of a depressive feeling linked to a yearning for the past. Ben was perhaps a good anchor in this discussion as he was able to offer both nuggets of foreign history on nostalgia as a well as a concisely-worded assessment of the current state of obsession with nostalgia in film here in Singapore. Here is what he presented at the event.

I like the account from Ben of how coffeeshop uncles and owners of ‘old places’ became wary everytime they saw Royston (Tan) and his crew because it seemed after these places were put in film, they were soon closed down.

Royston Tan’s ‘Old Trilogy’ – ‘Old Places’, ‘Old Romances’, ‘Old Friends’ is certainly not the only bastion of nostalgia. Several other examples were raised during the discussion. As the organisers have hoped (for extensions of this discussion after the event), I spoke to David Lee, Vice-Chairman of Singapore Film Society to pick his brains on the films that dally with nostalgia and if he thinks the current dose of nostalgia is good for our blood circulation.

Jeremy Sing: I have a question to start: when the event first surfaced, which films did you think, in the organisers' minds, are 'guilty' of nostalgia?

David Lee Fu Nang: First ones to come to mind...’大世界’ (‘Great Great World’) by Kelvin Tong….’Old Places’, ‘Old Romances’.

Still from 'It's a Great Great World'

Still from 'Old Places'

Jeremy: Yes, the 'Old' trilogy certainly comes to mind.

David: And of course, ‘Hock Hiap Leong’......mmm.. and also Kelvin Sng’s ‘千言万语’. I think it's been a trend/ fad in the local short film scene for sometime.

Jeremy: I am guilty of sometimes looking for old, historic places to shoot as well!

David: And many of our filmmakers are also influenced by Wong Kar Wai's ‘In the Mood for Love’ and perhaps to a lesser extent, Tsai Ming Liang. These filmmakers certainly have had an impact on the post 2000 filmmakers.

Jeremy: Ben slater mentioned this is like a second hand yearning for a past that was gone generations before they were born. What do you think this reflects about our society?

David: Hmm..this is my personal take…I reckon for filmmaking, it is still limited to the short filmmaking scene we’ve had for most of the post 2000 decade. And the range of films may not be all that accurately representative of attitudes across society. (Pause) Actually Jack Neo had done nostalgia with ‘Homerun’, though it was once-off.

Jeremy: That’s true. So it’s not just a Gen-Y thing.

David: Among the Gen-Ys, Boo Junfeng has offered a more contemplative, & even personal take on nostalgia with films like ‘Keluar Baris’, though I don’t think this film dwells on nostagia.

Jeremy: Yes, agree. The National Stadium in the film served a purpose more than evoking nostalgic feelings.

David: But my point is that the early films of many filmmakers came from a personal place, rather than a desire to create nostalgia.

Jeremy: That’s a good point. If you think about it, Ilo Ilo, which looks unnecessarily nostalgic, since the story could be told in today’s time, was also a personal piece, based on Anthony’s childhood relationship with Terry, his domestic helper. (pause) Ben also mentioned during the event the origins of the word nostalgia carries an amount of pain, like how the British soldiers who could not go home felt. Generally, a depressive condition, an unhappiness about the present situation. What’s your view of that in Singapore’s context?

David: You know there has been a lot of these ground-up initiatives to preserve old places, like the railway green corridor walks, the Bukti Brown walks etc. I know many friends.. both from my generation..as well as people younger & older who take part in these events, banding together in solidarity. So while nostalgia historically started off as a really sad word (a combination of the Greek words Nostos (homecoming) and Algos (pain), it has evolved to convey quite a range of feelings since. I see the Brownies as really wanting to save Bukit Brown...while the Railway folks were made up of people who just couldn't let go...and I think there are also mixtures of several environmentalists & nature walkers in those last 2 campaigns. (pause) People were there for many various reasons.. and I'm sure many are there just to join in the fun...I personally don’t see a lot of pain.

Jeremy: That’s true. It has become fun to learn about our past and I am not sure if the process of taking part in these activities carry that kind of pain inherent in the definiteion of nostalgia.

David: My point is that it seems nostalgia is interpreted generally by many Singaporeans a more positive light......people always talk about the good old kampung days….I think even filmmakers are guilty of peptrating such emotions...

Speaking of kampungs, Professor Chua Beng Huat, sociologst and Head of Sociology at NUS, offered a first-hand account of life in a kampung, having grown up in one. His account offered a counterpoint to what had been imagined by the young generation of Singaporeans and Singapore filmmakers, of life in the old days. ‘The HDB is not a vertical kampung,’he said, alluding to the fact the dynamics of relationships and life in a kampung was difficult to replicate elsewhere, the HDB flat included, despite the government’s use of the term ‘vertical kampung’. Here’s what Professor Chua has to share at the event.

David: You know, nostalgia is also a political tool. If you think about it, our love for the past has led our government to make full use of it for the SG50 campaign.

Jeremy: True! A lot of the SG50 initiatives are centred around celebrating the past and maybe in a more subtle way, telling us not to ‘rock the boat’. (pause) If you think about it, there are actually 2 strains of nostalgia running in parallel.

David: Which 2 strains?

Jeremy: The govt-driven nostalgia and the ground-up one as seen in all the Bukit Brown, save old places activities.

David: Among films, how will you classify films like ‘Old Places’ Or ‘Great Great World’ between the 2 strains of nostalgia?

Jeremy: I think ‘Great Great World’ seems to be more in sync with the government-driven type of nostalgia – reminiscing the good old days with no call to action. Happy with the past, happy with the present. Case closed. (pause) ‘Old Places’ on the other hand, has a certain call to action, to sort of rally support to preserve these places.

David: You have a point, but at the same time, I also feel the ‘Old’ series has slowly become more like ‘Great Great World’, and has also commodified the past to a certain extent. And today, not all the places are up for demolition. (Pause) Actually, there is one film I would like to mention, it is Eng Yee Peng's ‘Diminishing Memories’.

Jeremy: Ah I liked that one.

David: I think her work is even closer to the original definition of nostalgia. The fact that she couldn't let go & accept the fact that her childhood kampung is no more. I wish to see more films like ‘Diminishing Memories’.

Jeremy: Yes, it is deeply moving andit comes with a strong personal angle. (Pause) One of the quesrtions raised at the talk was : Can nostalgia hamper the development of a Singapore film identity? What do you think?

David: Again it depends on which definition of nostalgia are u referring to...if we see more of ‘Great Great World’ types...(and Jack Neo is already making one set in Kampung days called ‘Long Long Time Ago’), we will be seeing more commercially successful nostalgia... the commodifocation of it, singing in chorus with the SG50 campaign. (pause) I wish of course to also see more in depth work, like ‘To Singapore With Love’, ‘Diminishing Memories’ etc…offering different perspectives and different takes on history.

Jeremy: Commerical success is good, but it also cannibalises other points of view.

David: Exactly!

Jeremy Sing: Like if Jack Neo scores another box office hit with ‘Long Long Time Ago’, I can see many people copying whatever nostalgic style that film will come up with.

David: So who is allowing that to happen is a good question: we as an audience, MDA as the classifier? I dare say...the numbers & commercial success speak louder than individual voices.

Jeremy: Among the points brought up by the speakers, what resonated with you the most? Can you remember?

David: I’d probably say Bee Thiam’s. He brought out interetsing examples of how nostalgia gets approprated by the media... For instance, the Linhe WanBao article picked up the LKY mention in the film ’03-Flats’ and made it part of the article’s headline.

Watch Bee Thiam’s full presentation at the event here.

Jeremy: I think my biggest learning point from the discussion is the relationship betwen nostalgia and history.

David: Yes.

Jeremy: That sometimes nostalgia can colour history and exclude others. It can also prevent you from taking a critical look at certain things in the past.

David: Nostalgia does give the sense that it's more personal poiint-of-view. History is more formal, even academic.

Jeremy: It is also more objective. Nostalgia is selective.

David: Yup...since the discussion does have an academic slant, being fronted by Prof Chua.

Jeremy: Like what Prof chua said, many people trying to revive Temasek, but between Temasek and Raffles , there is nothing!

David: I think there's not much harm in feel good, romanticised nostalgia, which sometimes also aids in selling more movie tickets… and food (to quote the discussion) or other commodities. But I wish there could be more spaces and suppprt for artistic, personal or alternative forms of nostalgia, espeiclally in documentary filmmaking. I think we see alot of good documentary films on critical issues and being very ambitious scope-wise, being made elsewhere. I would like to see more of such trailblazers... here in Singapore!

Jeremy: Certainly agree! Thanks for you time David!

#NOSTALGIA, the event ended with a panel discussion with the panel which brought up many thought provoking questions and comments.

From left: Tan Bee Thiam, Professor Chua Beng Huat, Executive Director of Asian Film Archive and discussion moderator Karen Chan and Ben Slater

Watch the full panel discussion here.

The debate on nostalgia does not end here. The Asian Film Archive hopes to extend it beyond the event and that people would think critically about the treatment and use of nostalgia. You can join the REFRAME Facebook group to engage in discussions or keep up with more points of view on this matter.

Spilling the discussion over to the corridors, certainly the event organisers were hoping for.

Photos by SINdie
Videos courtesy of Asian Film Archive

The recent La Salle Putnam School of Film Graduation Showcase at The Projector while being an exhibition of new talents in the scene, turned out to be also a barometer of current social attitudes. This year’s crop of works demonstrated an apparent curiosity on the marginalized and the underdogs of society and delightfully showed a rather mature hand in the treatment of these matters, particularly in the documentaries. There is no surprise why some of the filmmakers we have are also prominent civil society voices. They have a great voice to lend!

Quinn

The documentary “Quinn’ by director Rave Puah was like a blinding beacon of light in the showcase, forcing the audience to sit up and give the subjects their full attention. ‘Quinn’ presents an often talked about but seldom captured reality in our society – inevitable shotgun marriages. The biggest of achievement of the film is being able to find a couple to agree to be put under a microscope for the benefit of us viewers. ‘Quinn’ documents he life of a young couple and their journey in raising their child, born out of wedlock. The young definition of young stretches our perception of this issue as the couple looks like they could fit right into a set of school uniforms.

The documentary is largely a talking heads piece, interspersed with a roving eye on their daily affairs. The devil of course is in the details and the unspoken trust between the filmmaker and the family. Singapore, as a society does not handle taboos well but this film and the family featured have given an oddly inspiring face to this taboo. One particular detail the film has picked up and captured is the strange ‘confrontational’ rapport the couple has between them, like the reverse of being passive-aggressive. The interaction between them is thorny yet nuanced with sweetness. Indeed, the film hits a note beyond just presenting a situation, it is also a character study, which draws us closer to the circumstances they are in. Not forgetting to mention, baby Quinn has a deformity on the feet. For the ‘double whammy’ circumstances she is in, the film thankfully does not over-sentimentalise. In fact, there are moments you laugh along with the couple or giggle at the little teething parenting boo boos they make. Given that it is potentially difficult to see this on national TV (as I think the couple may have reservations), this is a gem of documentary that needs to seen.

Blurred Lines

‘Blurred Lines’ by director Jeremiah R Oh continued along the thread of societal anomalies with a peek into the life of a Chinese medium and the questioning of religion. Again, the film chooses the path of relatively great resistance by picking a rare occurrence like this family’s experience and probably had to exercise a fair amount of persuasion to let the camera in on their lives and especially their vulnerabilities. They are vulnerable because they have recently sensed supernatural presence in the house and are seeking help. The family is established as staunch Catholics at the beginning but out of desperation, the mother seeks her brother’s help in dealing with the supernatural forces. Her brother is a Taoist medium. Without too much explaining, the sensationalistic plotline is clear and also the reality-TV allure of the film. The footages are eye-opening as the film takes us into the altar room of the medium and the journey to exorcism is conscientiously documented.

Interestingly, the film opens up more questions than it answers, which also distinguishes it from reality-TV. We are not sure the rituals of the Taoist medium worked in the end but more importantly, our understanding of the family’s strong Catholic faith is put into question. This has a slightly disorientating effect on the audience, especially if they were hoping for closure. What’s even more confusing is the family sitting down to say Catholic prayers right after the medium has finished his loop of exorcising around the house. Weird people indeed! Or the lack of a closing note?

October Cherries

My first introduction to October Cherries, the local band, is the song ‘Sunday Morning’ sung by Jacintha Abishanegaden. When the original recording of this song played in the documentary film ‘October Cherries’ by Cristy Amanda Rodrigues, it created a point of connection for me to the film. Documentaries like these tend to divide, you either watch it because the fan boy in you is looking for some musical gratification or the film presents a compelling story on the journey to getting the show together, or it becomes a pain to watch. The film documents the potential regrouping of the band through the eyes of Benny Siow, the percussionist and through this journey revisits the days of their former glory in the 60s and 70s. The younger members of the audience need to work harder to see these men beyond kopi-drinking uncles sitting in a coffeeshop trying to catch up with the times. With the interjection of old photographs, we get a whiff of their glory beyond their current silver-haired selves. The length of this film is perhaps its stumbling block for the reason that the film only manages to document the members on the watershed point of getting together again. On the other hand, of course, the meat, or rather the future of their new collaboration, has yet to materialize and the film ends up mostly a tribute film that ends with a question mark. The film does have a priceless moment though – when the band visited the record store, chanced upon their own albums and took a while to get used to seeing them!

Torrents

The narrative fiction shorts seemed to pale slightly in comparison to the documentaries but were thoughtfully crafted nonetheless. The marginalised continue to take centrestage in the films but each of the three narratives displayed a different approach. ‘Torrents’ directed by Aloysius Koh harbours a style echoing the ‘HDB Blues’ apparent in the early films of Eric Khoo, essentially a mix of domestic struggle brewing within the confines of the narrow HDB flat walls, despair and a dark visual palette. I would add Tsai Ming Liang to this for the use of water leakage as a motif. ‘Torrents’ tell the story of a young man, David, who is still living with his father and does not see the point of hos father trying to salvage the ‘leaking’ situation in the current home. What ensues is then an inter-generational struggle between sentimentalism and ‘younger generation sensibilities’, as the son wants to sell the flat and live somewhere new. While the film is largely predictable and its treatment and production design seem ‘borrowed’, the father’s acting was moving and genuine and that anchored the film mostly. A note on lighting though, the storeroom that contained the old photo albums could be given an accent of lighting, to avoid the look of a blackout. Proves the point that film can be stagier than you think!

Chen Jing

The film ‘Chen Jing’ by director Alvin Soh recreates the world of prostitutes in Geylang, flooded in red light and filled with shadowy corridors and corners. ‘Chen Jing’ is the name of the protagonist, a Malaysian girl who finds her way into the trade to make money to pay off her debts. She strikes up sisterhood with one of the older girls but her own intentions to reach her pot of gold faster get in the way of the relationship. The premise is familiar. Unfortunately, the treatment, too is familiar. It is probably the linear and literal treatment of the story and characters that reminds you of TV soap opera. It might be partly the use of Cantonese as well that makes you think you might be on Malaysian TV. While the film recreated the space of this trading den appropriately, it needed to look deeper beneath the soap opera clichés of clandestine plotting and plans destined for failure. A little more backstory perhaps.

Harbour

‘Harbour’ the final film of the evening, directed Cheng Chai Hong, is a film that communicates a several levels, though this took a while. The opening misleads you into either the realm of science fiction or horror with the discovery of a mannequin or rubber life-sized human doll on the bed of a lady who stays alone. Then when her fascination with the doll gets compulsive, you wonder if you are watching a thriller. For sure, you could conclude she was psychotic by now and you are just waiting for the moment when she kisses the doll like a real human being. Of course, more clues are laid out as the film progresses and it is revealed that she has stolen the doll from her own company where she works.

What looks like a genre-bending journey is really the director’s attempt at completing the picture of this woman’s strange obsession with the doll in steps. The result is a layered portrait of a character who exists at two levels, one who is taunting the audience with her antics and keeping them in suspense on what she will do next to the doll, the other one who is really a person in love, though a forbidden one. The cryptic film may require a double take to piece together an understanding but this is really a modern take on relationships and it is gratifying when you finally see the full flesh (no bones) of it and get what it is trying to say to you.

Reviews by Jeremy Sing

Synopsis: Kai brings Min to a clinic after he tests positive for herpes. With the looming shadow of Kai's infidelity, Min is forced to face her fears, and the oncoming tempest of adulthood.

'November' premiered at the 25th Singapore International Film Festival. It was also awarded "Best Script" at the 6th Singapore Short Film Awards, and was nominated for the "Golden Reel", awarded to the best short film, at the 31st Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

1. What inspired this short film?

At the age of 19, I experienced my first STD scare. The discovery, the anxiety and fear of testing positive, and worse, passing it on to my partners, brought upon an overwhelming feeling that I couldn't right this wrong. Up until that point in my life, I never found myself in a situation so dead end.

I had a difficult time coming to terms with how I potentially ruined people's lives. There was a part of me that wanted to keep mum, and hope everything would be ok, that it was just my imagination, that it was paranoia, but I couldn't get a peace of mind.

Eventually, as my conscience would have it, I came clean with the people involved and this lead to difficult confrontations, which formed the basis of the script.

As I recalled the experience during the writing process, I felt strongly that it was a very maturing experience, but I wasn't really sure why. What does it mean to "grow up" exactly? What does it mean to "mature"? These became the questions which drove the plot, so over the course of a night, Kai and Min slowly shed their innocence, becoming a little less fluff, and a lot more honest.

2. November is a beautifully directed film, how did you work with the two actors? Also, how did you cast them?

I'm not sure how people would take to this, but besides the synopsis, Kah Yong (Kai), and Cara (Min) didn't know anything about the film because I refused to show them the script. I didn't want them to be caught up memorising lines, planning each scene in their head, etc.

In the weeks leading up to production, we spent quite a bit of time rehearsing scenes without a script to get them comfortable being in a scene without any material. Improv, if you would. I didn't want them to feel like they needed to "be" somebody. They're interesting people to begin with. I had an ideal version of who "Kai" and "Min" should have been, but rather than force Kah Yong and Cara to be those people, I preferred to have them be comfortable being vulnerable in front of the camera as themselves.

When production began, they would learn about each scene right before we shot it. We would talk about what happens in the scene, and discuss similar experiences in their own relationships. Then we'd draft out some lines together, rehearse once or twice, go for a take, tweak, repeat.

They also didn't get to see any playbacks of their performance, which could be completely unacceptable for some actors, but as with the rehearsals, I didn't want them to be self-aware.

As for casting, Kah Yong was referred to me by a friend. I first met Cara in school during an acting class and found her performance particularly memorable. We contacted her for the film and she agreed to be a part of it. It sounds really simple and straightforward, but in reality we came really close to our last resort which was to have me play the role of Kai, and trust me, that would have made for a terrible film.

3. One of the cornerstones of your film is the poignant and realistic dialogue. Was it scripted or did you allow the actors to improvise? Tell us about how you developed the dialogue.

There was dialogue in the script, but those were more for my reference than for the actors.

I'm not great at writing dialogue, so we approached dialogue based on what Kah Yong and Cara would actually say in those situations. As far as "scripted" goes, we drafted the lines right before we shot each scene, but otherwise I wasn't really strict about it. If it felt natural to them, then I wanted to hear it.

As to how the initial dialogue in the script was developed, they were based on my experience.

4. The cinematography has a strong character. Could you share about the cinematographic treatment? What was it shot on?

The director of photography, Marx Yim, and I knew we wanted to shoot hand-held from the start. I could indulge and wax lyrical about how the story influences this and that, but really, the way I was working with the actors meant that the camera had to be dynamic. I didn't want framing to become too restrictive of their movements, so instead of the actors accommodating the frame, we accommodated their movements.

The difficulty with this was having to light a bigger area with limited resources, especially in the scenes which took place in the clinic reception area. To solve this, Marx built an overhead rig out of metal beams, criss-crossing them to create a grid, then mounted lights and adjusted them according to the scenes. He basically converted the space into a make-shift soundstage.

We could have really just lit the whole place with fluorescent lights like any normal clinic would, but the challenge was to create a realistic clinic space without it looking too flat. Marx is a really talented DP, who had a lot experience as a grip for someone who was still a student, and he really brought that experience on set.

The film was shot on the Sony F3.

5. Who are your influences in cinema? Any favourite directors?
With regard to "November", the two main films which the crew and I used as references to communicate our intent was "L'Enfant" and "Blue Valentine". I also made sure to show Kah Yong and Cara those films, so these two films definitely played a part in the making of "November".

The list will continue to change and grow, but the few directors who have stuck with me throughout my cinematic pursuit and continue to inspire me are the Dardennes brothers, Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier, Steve McQueen (not the actor), Abbas Kiarostami and Brilliante Mendoza. All for different reasons, but in principle, they share the ability to make sense of the modern world; something I find very precious and admirable.

Fundamentally Happy, adapted from the namesake play staged in 2006, has rich material to cull from. The 2006 production is the first that I watched as a young Theatre Studies major and, if anything, it has only gotten better with age.

The film (and hence the play) revolves around Eric, a social worker who visits his childhood caretaker, Habiba, at her flat after not seeing her for nearly twenty years. He brings with him a dark secret that has burdened him those past two decades.

I remember the theatre piece as an incisive and uncompromising examination of paedophilia that boldly confronted the topic without so much as flinching. But the play doesn’t just concern itself with paedophilia. Looking back now, I realize how prescient it was of all the Issues of the Day, arguments that have gripped our culture and media with a fury. Issues debated hotly by activists and journalists, such as: the nature of the victim, and whether the “victim” may be somehow complicit in the “abuse”; the dynamics of the abuser-victim relationship, and who truly wields the power; and the causation of homosexuality – does childhood trauma or abuse have to play in the development of such an orientation?

What made the 2006 production so memorable, though, wasn’t just its script’s smart and subtle exploration of those topics. Rather, two powerful performances by Chua En Lai and Aidli “Alin” Mosbit, breathed life into the production and grounded the play’s rigorous examination of these issues with a warmth and humaneness. Fortunately, the performances by the film’s actors are similarly solid.

For the most part, the script for Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin’s adaptation hews closely to the stage version. They have trimmed the original script to fit a lean 60-minute running time, but have mostly kept the essentials and nuances intact. But whether or not Fundamentally Happy is a loyal adaption is not the chief concern – but whether or not it works as a film.

Even while Tan and Lei have kept the script largely the same, their chamber drama does carry some unique qualities of its own. The film’s claustrophobic setting – far less pronounced in the stage production if I recall correctly, owning to the endless movements on set – aptly hints at the psychological cage the two characters have built around themselves: Eric with his unrequited pining for his uncle Ismail, and his reluctance to forget and move on; Habiba with her inability to leave her husband despite full knowledge of his paedophilic crimes.

The film is a meditative product, concerned with pondering the truths of its characters’ words by constantly fixing its gaze on their faces. Tan and Lei’s adaptation is less invested in the “argument”, with who’s right or wrong than the stage version. Even in many of Eric and Habiba’s more heated exchanges, the directors seldom fit both characters into the same frame, choosing only to show one character at a time and capturing their faces. The charged air of tension, so palpable in the stage production with the actors’ constant shifts in space, is thus punctured, and the spirit of battle that animates the stage production kept tightly lidded. As a result, the film is far less a war of wiles and struggle for one-upmanship than it is an attempt to peer into the hearts and minds of its protagonists.

But the film’s static quality does rob it of some suspense, and here the twists felt a lot less startling and impactful. Where once I was almost gasping at the controversial developments in the play, here I simply waved it off. Perhaps it’s because of an awareness of what’s going to happen this time round, or perhaps these revelations, once wielded by the characters as ways to gain leverage over the other, lose so much of their shock factor when the film adaptation no longer feels like a drawn-out verbal sparring session.

The stage production’s muscle-clenching tension (I kept thinking, “who the heck is going to win this battle of wiles?”) isn’t just for excitement. It also helps to accentuate the political and social dimensions of the play. The personal is blatantly political in the play, and the characters serve as avatars for the various sides of the culture wars they fall under. (Eric represents social justice, and hence social upheaval; Habiba, mercy, and the status quo; Eric stands for a progressive view, Habiba a slightly more conservative one; Eric, with his victim to survivor to social justice advocate life trajectory, can be seen as a symbol of a certain type of feminism; Habiba, with her staunch defense of a monstrous oppressor, can be seen as the opposite of feminism.)

Tan and Lei’s work tries to dial down its stage progenitor’s overt invocation of the social and political, but it is still completely aware of those dimensions. The directors use a more languid and contemplative style that invites us to study and empathise with the characters, instead of scrutinizing their arguments and trying to determine a victor. It’s a decidedly more reconciliatory approach in handling those touchy topics.

Even though the film does has its flaws - excessive staginess, for example - it would be unwise to judge the film against the strengths of the theatre version, of which there are many. Both versions fulfill different purposes: the theatre production, the firebrand, serves as a conversation starter, and the film, the olive branch, works as a call to reconciliation, compromise, and empathy – fitting, considering the contentious environment that surrounds our cultural landscape.

Review by Raymond Tan

Where do you draw the line between film, TV, reality-TV and content you feed on from YouTube? Is the Blair Witch Project really YouTube genre that got lucky on the big screen? But hey, we’ve seen some films which are arguably brilliant in the most rigorous definition, on YouTube. A case in point was the recent graduation showcase by the 2015 graduating digital filmmaking class of the NTU ADM Film School. 10 short films were presented at the showcase and they spanned a whole spectrum of genres from narrative to documentary to experimental films. They are so diverse in style and content, sitting through the screening reminds you of the experience of surfing YouTube, a sort-of freewheeling ride through a multitude of experiences, often sensational and some crossing the line between film and that YouTube quick fix we need at the end of a working day.

The last film of the evening ‘Happily Ever After’ by Shaun Neo, Apple Ong and Pek Hongkun, an experimental film, stood out as the ‘maverick’ piece among the rest for its lack of a story and its very touch-and-go approach to observing weddings through the generations. This is either a very poorly-conceived experiment or a single-minded pursuit of certain visual aesthetics. The film is cleanly parted in three, with each segment showing family members at a wedding getting in line for a family photo. The stylistic and behavioral differences between the generations (60, 80s and current) are starkly portrayed and each segment takes us through the same routine. The punchline in the film seems to be last segment which tries to show disconnect between the young couple and the parents, a reverse from the state of closely-knit big families in the 60s. However, the rather anemic delivery of this punchline, made this film seem like incomplete in its conceptualization. There is also very little exposition of the characters beyond just ‘period-clothes-horses’. Yet, this film is what sits on the intersection of the film format and the consumable social media format, something you certainly would feed on and share with your friends. Flaws and all, it’s click-worthy.

Another film that sings its own tune is ‘In Search of Memories’ by Daniel Chong. This film, though not inventive in its genre, is deeply personal and largely esoteric in its approach. The film takes us on a mental road trip with the narrator, through her musings, dilemmas and questions. The film has quoted a brilliant line from French filmmaker Chris Marker’s film ‘Sunless’ – that the human eye captures images at one-24^th of a second, very much like film, implying that the lines are often blur between what’s in film and what’s real to us. The lines are thoughtful in this experimental piece and so are the images captured. Straddling between Singapore and somewhere in Europe and Japan, the filmmaker has an eye for capturing the poetic and lyrical in his travels, from people to even paintings. However, this combination of wanderlust and navel-gazing is akin to a train going nowhere. The ride is breath-taking but you question the point of it. For me, I question the narrator’s voice – a languid female voice that sounds like a teenager who is sick of school. Does life have to be as fatalistic as she sounds? It could be if the context of this is explained in the film. If.

The documentary film ‘Invisible Voices’ by Liu Longhao explores the life of migrant workers in Singapore. While most of it sounds like another run-of-the-mill peek behind walls of their living quarters, the film inserts an additional angle to the film, the point of view of Kavan Lim, a young financially successful man who lives in Sentosa Cove. The choice of planting a stimulus like this borders on breaking the rules of documentation. It reeks of reality TV where the audience feeds on the meeting of unlikely characters, often to sensational effects. However, the film actually pans out like any other documentary as the presence of Kavan seems inconsequential. His interaction with the workers is a kin to the filmmaker interacting with them, drawing the expected responses and in some talking head interviews with the workers, the lines are blurred between watching Kavan conversing and the filmmaker conversing with them. The film however, succeeds on achieving a high degree of intimacy with its subjects, getting them to be comfortable with expressing some genuine feelings about their situation. Particularly eye-opening is the tour of the workers’ quarter, a world hidden from the common view of Singaporeans but brought to light by the conscientious efforts of these filmmakers.

The other documentary in the evening’s line-up, ‘Children of Mon Mot’ Rachel Siao is another labour of love, shot entirely on the island of Alor in East Indonesia, the film is an interesting peek into the lives and psyche of the Abui tribe on this island. The tribe’s means of passing their ‘endangered’ language is through the telling of folktales and the film is centred around one folktale about a gigantic snake that ate up the whole village and how the village fought back. This is a very polished attempt at a documentary with technically-accomplished cinematography, editing and not to forget storytelling, pun intended. The villagers take turns to tell the story and their accounts are interjected with snippets of the drawings, which are highly evocative of the imagined mystical world of this snake. The entire experience, with the men’s long whiskers of white hairs and weathered skin and the intensity of their accounts, is authentic and intimate. This is really a safe attempt, treatment-wise, at a documentary, set off the beaten track, but immaculately framed for an audience spoilt on National Geographic.

I remember ‘Little Maud’ by Petrina Anne De Souza, as the film with the subtitles appearing like picture captions on a condominium TV ad. This film, which straddles between reality, memory and fantasy is a stylistically strong attempt at telling a story about the relationship between a father and his daughter. The premise of a father who is watching his daughter grow and fearing being alienated when she is mature, is both familiar and potentially affecting. However, the film suffers from production design overkill. The dreamy treatment with soft-focus filters and pastel colouring fails to cover up for many visual clichés in the way their relationship is being portrayed. Perhaps it was an attempt to visually interpret the source of this story which is a actually an American poem ‘Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight. But the foreign context of this got a little lost, not in translation, but in the whiffs of fairy dust clouding most of the film.

Review by Jeremy Sing

Our reviews of the other 5 films from the NTU ADM graduation film showcase will continue in another post.

SINdie was lucky enough to be able to catch up with directors Tan Bee Thiam and Yuan Bin on the process of making the film, and thoughts on responses from audience members and future distribution plans.

Synopsis of Fundamentally Happy:

Twenty years ago, Habiba and Eric were neighbours. When Eric revisits her home to find her still living there with her husband, what seems like a friendly reunion turns into the gradual revelation of a painful secret from the past. From the acclaimed play by Haresh Sharma and Alvin Tan, Fundamentally Happy was the Winner of Best Production and Best Original Script at the 2007 Life! Theatre Awards. This chamber drama gets a film treatment by Singapore independents Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin, with the camera helmed by Christopher Doyle. With its wrenching psychodrama and scalpel-edged dialogue, the films moody cinematography and varied close-ups bring viewers further into the storys heart of darkness, breaking down the distance of the stage and cinemas fourth wall, and creating its own form of detachment. An unflinching look at the consequences of abuse, Fundamentally Happy explores without judgment or condemnation critical issues such as trust, memory, relationships and consent.

1. How did the directorial collaboration between yourself and Yuan Bin come about?

We were always curious how two directors can collaborate on the same film and so we gave it a try with this project. 13 Little Pictures has always been about creative collaboration so it was a natural decision.

2. How did you two work together in the process of making this film?

Both of us are collaborative in nature. We work in an organic way. We have a lot of creative conversations in every stage of the production. We challenge and inspire each other. When we differ in opinion, we let each other have a take each or a separate edit (for a scene for example). Our best decisions are always the consensual ones. On set, as time was the essence, I would often be the one conveying our decisions to the cast while Yuan Bin would do so to the crew. For more than a year, we edited together in the evenings and over weekends.

Christopher Doyle and lead actor Joshua Jonathan Lim.

3. What were some reasons you and Yuan Bin chose to adapt Fundamentally Happy from stage to film?

We are great admirers of the work of Haresh, Alvin and The Necessary Stage. We are very inspired by the Singapore stories produced by our writers and theatre-makers. When we read Fundamentally Happy, we were immediately attracted by how cinematic it was. It reminded us of the chamber films of Bergman, who also straddled between theatre and film. Therefore, we thought it would be a great work for us to explore the intersection of two mediums. We have not seen another work that addresses the important issue of abuse so eloquently and compassionately. By adapting it, we hope to multiply the impact of this work so it reaches out to more people.

4. Were you inspired by other meta-theatrical or chamber films (perhaps such as Dogville (2003) and those of Ingmar Bergman)? If so, could you tell us which ones and how so?

As mentioned in our directors' statement, we are inspired by the chamber films of Ingmar Bergman, particularly Though a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence.

5. How did you work with the cast (Adibah Noor and Joshua Lim) to for e.g. To get them to immerse in past memory & recollection, while coming to terms with unraveled truths in present space and time?

We cast Adibah ( from Malaysia) playing Habiba and Joshua (from Singapore) playing Eric. Both of them did not meet each other until a day before the shoot. We shot in sequence to allow them to acquaint with the emotional arc of the narrative.

We did not want actors who are similar to the characters. Unlike Habiba, Adibah is not married and does not have kids. Joshua does not have the traumatic childhood of Eric but did have a Malay neighbour growing up. We did not want the actors to tap on their memories and experiences. We did not want the actors to get too personal or close to the work. We did not want the actors to get too close to each other. After shoot, we would send them back as soon as we could. We did not want them to discuss or interpret. We did not want them to be overly emotional or affected. Instead, we require them to place complete faith in the characters that Haresh and Alvin have created and to let the words guide them. Laugh when you are amused. Cry when you really feel you would. Hold it back too and not feel the need to always have to show how you feel. Like in real life. We asked them to trust their instincts. Once we got what we need, we also give our actors the freedom to ask for a take if they feel the impulse to try again or to try something different from our direction.

Close-up on lead actress Adibah Noor.

6. Could you share some memorable anecdotes (incidents, challenges etc) faced during the production of this film?

We were still painting the house the day before shoot. We shot over Christmas and New Day and were dressing up the set ourselves, along with many kind production and art assistants. Thankfully the paint dried in time. In the film, there was a scene where Eric had to slap Adibah, who’s a respected veteran personality in Malaysia. Adibah was very professional and requested Joshua (Eric) to really slap her. Being the gentlemen that he is, Joshua was really conflicted and could not bear to do so.

7. What were some initial reactions from viewers, e.g ‘test audiences’?

Most audience members complimented on the strong performances by Joshua and Adibah. We are really happy their hard work paid off. There were also questions about how the film is different from the play, what was left out and what was added. We are not too interested about fidelity as the process and approach are more important for us. Instead, we like to think that the film is the result of us thinking of connections and having conversations between the source and the adapted text. Through months of discussing the work with Haresh, months of looking for our actors and more than a year editing the film, what we presented is what we understand about Fundamentally Happy and what we think is true to its spirit.

Lead actor Joshua Jonathan Lim with director Tan Bee Thiam.

8. What are your distribution plans for this film? Any specific plans for film distribution regionally and internationally?

We plan to let the film travel the film festival circuit first and then have a limited release in Singapore and Malaysia, if there is interest from distributors. Hopefully there will be a brave distributor who will pick up the film as it is about something important we should be talking about.

9. Any future collaborative plans between yourself and Yuan Bin in the pipeline? If no, what are you going to be working on next?

Both of us will be collaborating again in our own new feature projects. I will be directing another film and Yuan Bin will be co-producing it. Yuan Bin is writing a new feature script and I am producing for him.

Cast and crew (Christopher Doyle included) of Fundamentally Happy.

Directors of Fundamentally Happy Tan Bee Thiam, Lei Yuan Bin and actor Joshua Lim (middle) at the Southeast Asian Film Festival screening.

ciNE65, one of the earliest short film competitions in Singapore is in its third season this year. Organised by Nexus (www.nexus.com.sg), this short film competition has spawned some very ingenious works over the years. This year's theme is 'Believing.Home' (Believe In Home?) and it invites filmmakers out there to offer their view of what Home is and what makes them feel at home. This year's competition attracted more than 230 entries in both the 'Student' and 'Open' categories. We combed through many of them and came up with our Top 10.

Here is our top 10 in the Student Category in reverse order:

Student category:

10. The Cobbler, directed by Lim Jun Kai
Synopsis: The Cobbler follows the teaching of 'Nothing in this world is free' and 'You reap what you sow' through the explanation of a teenager's grandfather.

We like how unabashedly confident the filmmakers are about getting us the audience to suspend our disbelief. The 'look it's so fake' grandpa-makeover, the sporting of denim shorts by women in the 60s and the oh, grandpa's smooth tender complexion are glaring and yet effective. Otherwise, this film is pensive and thoughtful, with a touch of nostalgia on the virtues of hard work and perseverance exemplified in the older generation. A little naggy but it gets the message across neatly.

9. Meaning of Home, directed by Nataling Yap Suer Ting
Synopsis: A heartwarming film about an old couple, who do not have offspring, yet build a strong relationship with their neighbours of different races and religions. They believe that family, in Singapore, can be defined not just by blood ties, but moments between close persons as well.

Sweet in its initial romantic touches, this film has an understated display of human affection and relations. What's more remarkable about the film is the way it challenges the idea of a family, or rather the typical prototype of a family. It did get a little confusing in the middle when you wondered if this was Singapore's version of Angeline Jolie and Brad Pitt, being the adopting champions there are. But of course, it's just the director's way of saying how family extends beyond the biological boundaries. The film's portrayal of the interracial neighbourhood did seem slightly staged, but its message overrules everything else.

8. HERO, directed by Seri Munirah bte Rahmat
Synopsis: A short film that focuses on Singapore's defence that stays as strong, from one generation to another. Joshua recounts his childhood days and his motivation to become a policeman to serve and protect the country.

While slightly predictable in its setup and development, this film is a good reminder of the finer qualities of loyalty to our country, and the deep bond between fathers and sons. On another note, don't you love how these student films can do skittish play acting and make-up and still get away with it? The powdered hair, the pencilled-in wrinkles, and the kids who look too young to be fathers and grandmothers! It's kind of endearing.

7. Worthy, directed by Dawn Lim Yun Hui
Synopsis: A story of a mother giving up her dreams to make her son happy.

This is a story that looks at how a family relates to one another and learns that love in a family means sacrificing your interests for that of a loved one. There is something about the earnest face of the lady who plays the mother that seems to anchor the film. With the exception of the final resolution that seems clumsily executed (and this is probably directorial), she gives you that lump in the throat everytime you see her. The film's unpolished in several ways but it's got a clear sincere voice.

6. Treasure, directed by Yap Jia Wei
Synopsis: Treasure is the story of how perseverance and hope can build a nation. De Ming comes home from school in a bad mood. He tells his father he is doing badly in school. Feeling demoralised and dejected, his father thinks of a way to cheer his son up and motivate him. His father takes De Ming to Chinatown to find treasure. De Ming wants to give up, but his father continues to encourage him.

Narrative cliches and more pages from the moral education textbook. The film has a good message but lacked a personal touch as the message seemed too broad. But what lifts the film up from being mediocre is the endearing child actor, who scores with his presence and those eyes!

5. Dedication, directed by Jonathan Tan
Synopsis: Reminiscing about his late father, a young man delves into what it means to be dedicated to one's home.

Vintage always adds sparkle to he screen and this film captured it well in a several immaculately framed shots of old photos which were meant to tell the story. The narration in this film was extremely engaging. Though conventional, it told the story well, and even encompassed the structure of a traditional story arc.

4. Home brewed, directed by Nivash Joyvin Xavier
Synopsis: The journey of two close friends as they grow up during Singapore's early years. Contrasting ambitions and goals pull them apart when adulthood kicks in but fate eventually brings them back together through a coffee reunion.

Home brewed ranks 4th for its depiction of the simple affections in friendship and keen understanding between 2 good friends. It is a simple tale, but highly effective in its grasp of the way people relate to one another despite the distance of geography and time. Not to mention decent production values and a TV actor cameo too!

3. Homeground, directed by Grace Swee
Synopsis: Andrew is going through a typical bad day, but an incident helps him realise a quiet truth.

This film about a frustrated office worker is a sobering reflection of the easy discontented attitude we can fall into in our daily lives when we do not keep ourselves in check. What this film succeeds in is very singular about its message, almost like a TVC, but with a bit more heart.

2. Sightless, directed by Timothy Lim Bao Qiang
Synopsis: A father teaches his son a valuable lesson to trust and appreciate his people and his surroundings.

This film is sweet in its renderings of the special moments shared between father and son, tracing the son's growth from a little boy to that of a young adult. The story forms a nice trajectory, that leads to a small surprise at the end. The surprise does make the film more meaningful and the father's love, deeper.

1. Blk 401, directed by Stanley Xu Ruiyang
Synopsis: A young man finds the feeling of home in the coffee shop he used to visit, and he reminisces fragments of his childhood and adolescence there.

Despite being predominantly a reflective piece, this film does have many layers. It is a meditative piece on culture, neighbourhood, memory and personal narrative. It's not difficult to discern why this film has very high viewership-- it is easy to relate to in its topic and observations of human relationships and events. And those aspirins, they go really well with fish ball noodles!

Written by Bella Ow

We continue with the 'Open' category Top 10 here.

ShoutOut!: The 25th European Union Film Festival (EUFF) -- 13 to 24 May 2015

ShoutOut!: mm2 Entertainment Launches Movie Makers Short Film Competition (我要当导演) in Singapore in Collaboration with FOX International Channels

Production Talk with Zulkifli Salleh and Lee Chee Tian on 'Anchovies'

Review: '03-Flats'

Production with He Shuming on 'And the Wind Falls'

ShoutOUT!: National Youth Film Awards!

Production Talk on 'Last Trip Home' with Han Fengyu

ShoutOUT!: Examining 'Nostalgia' in Singapore cinema at #NOSTALGIA - 9 May

ShoutOUT!: SFS x GTWHI Film Exchange Programme 2015

Review - 'As You Were' by Liao Jiekai

Review - 'Rubbers' by Han Yew Kwang

ShoutOUT! Win prizes for voting in the ciNE65 contest now!

Review - 'Faeryville' by Tzang Merwyn Tong

Concerned about the 'Future' of 'Nostalgia' @ #NOSTALGIA

Review - Short films from the La Salle PSOF Graduation Showcase

Production Talk: November by Shane Lim.

Review - Fundamentally Happy by Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin

Review - NTU ADM Film 2015 Graduation Shorts - Part 1

Production Talk with Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin on 'Fundamentally Happy'

Cine65 Showcase - 10 picks from the Student Category