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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'Hooped on You' by Butterworks

March 1, 2017, 9:11 pm
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A Singaporean love story that will break your heart before putting it all together again, Hooped On You is a mini movie released on YouTube recently. Released by Butterworks, a Digital Content Producer, in collaboration with mm2 Entertainment, the film was made in celebration of the channel’s second anniversary as well as do what they do best – share a story with their viewers.


This particular mini movie follows two main characters, Jia Min and Wei Yang as their lives start to intertwine with one another. Through the girls working at a bubble tea shop that the basketball boys visit, feelings start to brew and drama unravels as life happens. Is it possible for romance or is that just asking for further trouble?
The storyline is simple to follow and has its fair share of humour to counter the emotionally charged scenes. Even though there seems to be many subplots or elements abruptly introduced that leaves certain gaps in story-telling, the viewer can easily suspend his/her imagination to just go with the flow. With that being said, perhaps the mini movie might need to run longer to accommodate all the ideas introduced or be more selective about what actually goes into the film.
Being their first mini movie that runs for 65 minutes, it is quite a commendable feat in terms of script, shooting and editing. Watchable and completely heart-warming, Hooped On You proves that the channel has plenty of potential and surprises up their sleeve.


We spoke to one of the founders of Butterworks, Lun, to learn more about their YouTube channel and of course, stories behind the making of Hooped on You.


How did Butterworks come about as a YouTube channel? 

Previously, Rachel and I (Lun) joined several short film competitions like Cathay Motion Picture Awards and ciNE65 and we won some awards. People around us came to us and encouraged us to produce more short films as they wanted more. We gathered our 8 good friends who love filmmaking and inspiring people just as much as we do, and formed Butterworks.
What more can be done to grow the Singapore YouTube community, in your opinion? 
As long as everyone tries his/her best in whatever they do, there will come a day when all efforts will be paid off.
What inspires the making of your mini movies? 

As a team, we like to explore new challenges and pushing ourselves beyond our limits. 
Has your work evolved from your first movie to the most recent Hooped on You? How so? 
Yes definitely. Our shoot hours increased from 100 hours to 150 hours. In all aspects of filmmaking, the workload doubled as we took that leap from a 30 mins film to a 60 mins film. We are very humbled that this mini movie has received great audience responses.



Tell us more about how the idea came about - the creation of script, casting of actors, etc. 
We, the 90s generation, love the classic drama, MVP 情人. Hence, we decided to do a throwback to the topic "篮球 Basketball" combined with the modern and relatable drink "泡泡茶 Bubble Tea"
 This film revolves around the message of "looking beyond what you can see" and we hope this message will inspire people to not rely on their first impressions or judge people based on what they have done. Instead, they should take a step further to understand what are the intentions behind those actions because sometimes, people do the wrong things for the right reasons. 
This movie has plenty of support from brands, which is great. How difficult is it to garner such support and does it play a huge role in the budgeting of the film? 
It definitely helped us. We are very thankful for the amount of faith these brands and partners have in us and our visions for the film. 
What was the most challenging part of filming Hooped on You, and how was it overcome? 
It is easy for a freelancer to fork out 3 - 4 months of commitment, but for our team members to squeeze out their time and energy for this project amongst their busy schedule filled with studies, homework & work, was the greatest challenge for Hooped On You.
Because of this hectic filming period, most of us fell sick. But as good friends, we pushed each other to try more than our best, and with one steady step at a time together as a team, we finally reached the finish line.
What other works do you plan to explore in the future? 
We will continue to push ourselves. I guess we are "hooped on" new challenges. Haha. 

Written by Dawn Teo

Finally, here is the piece-de-resistance, the actual movie itself. Get your popcorn ready!




For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.

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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'Goldfish' by Jonathan Cheok

March 1, 2017, 9:12 pm
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A boy, unexpectedly, meets a girl in a Hong Kong back alley. A series of unfortunate events turned their night around and they realized that they just might have been what each other's looking for all this while. Goldfish is a YouTube short film that takes a look at long distance relationships and the concept of 'love at first sights'. What might not be perfect, could actually be.

The short film belongs to Cheokboard Studios, a YouTube channel created by Jonathan Cheok, which has 215,000 subscribers and more than 37 million views for all its videos created since 2013. Goldfish stood our hearts and we want to pass it on and share the lurve. Here's our review of the film:


Goldfish is a brave attempt at a romantic short film by Jonathan Cheok of Cheokboard Studios, a YouTube personality mostly known for his sensationalistic over the top comedy sketches.


The film is relatively interesting, considering it is a Singaporean production set and shot largely in Hong Kong, over a period of only two days, which is a considerable feat. Furthermore, Jonathan had recently become part of the MM2 Digital Content Producer and it was interesting to see how his YouTube channel is growing under this new partnership. Goldfish is one of the projects that had been supported by MM2 and has been a more serious and personal departure than his usual work of constant slapstick videos, which to me is a small but commendable step for the development of local media content in general.


Other admirable aspects are the brave cinematography risks being made in Goldfish. The film was shot with a DJI Osmo, a handheld stabilized camera system to create dynamic unshaking running sequences and a Sony A7sii to shoot Hong Kong in the glory of the night. These are brave and bold steps, though some of the risks do not pay off. Some shots feel convoluted and forced and image quality is at times strangely poor. One reckons the difference in low light capabilities between the Osmo and A7sii is to blame. Or more accurately, the cinematographer that made those decisions. That being said, again this is a different style than what Jonathan has done before and usually technical quality can always be forgiven with good story.

However, it is not so good on that front either. The characters here are hollow stereotypes with the female character initially engaging with her own worries becoming an instantaneous misogynistic fantasy cliché. In the presence of the romantic interest, she mind-bogglingly becomes completely trusting of him despite him being a complete stranger. She instantly transforms from relatively interesting to becoming some sort of video game reward for the male character for doing something barely decent. This lack of any coherent real world logic and clichéd story is the biggest issue with the film, which affects the acting as well, where the dialogue and actions feel shallow and unmotivated.



Romantic films are built on the charisma and chemistry of the two leads, and in this case, it largely fails. Whilst Jonathan Cheok probably succeeds regularly with his guests in his fast-paced, gag-a-second YouTube sketches, in a narrative and non-comedic format it is clear when the sparks are missing. I found this an issue with his appearance in the 2016 film 4 Love as well. In those stints, we can see that his natural charisma which he uses to power through his sketch gags is not yet engaging enough to be sustainable, whereas the rapid pace and constant change in his usual sketches allow viewers to ignore any annoyances we have with his caricatures before long.

Overall, whilst the film is not perfect, it is interesting to see what online digital creators in Singapore are doing as media becomes more diversified.

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We caught up with Jonathan to get behind the scenes of Goldfish.

What inspired you to develop, Goldfish? How did this idea start from?

It started from me falling head over heels for a Hong Kong girl and planning a trip there to be with her. Funny thing is, this was only conceptualized, written and produced the time I was in Hong Kong. I had 2 days to do this on my own.

 Your short is shot in Hong Kong? What is your connection to Hong Kong and why did you decide to set it there? 

Hong Kong brings back both very happy and very sad feelings for me. It is a sensitive topic and one I hold close to my heart. My only connection to Hong Kong is the girl I'm madly in love with (which unfortunately did not work out), the nostalgic old Hong Kong films I've been a fan of since young like Stephen Chow, Jackie Chan, Wong Kar Wai, Johnnie To, and I think one of my Mum's cousin is apparently from Hong Kong! I have family there I think.

Some of the shots look interesting and dynamic. What kind of equipment did you use for the shoot?

It was hard finding crew there, being all by myself. Apple did help me source for a couple of extras from TVB, we paid HKD$1000 to rent that specific fish shop because I knew it would fit the look of the film in terms of colours and set. The shop had a red and blue hue to it and just felt very Hong Kong! I begged the Uncle three times, saying I was doing a student project, Apple asked in Cantonese too. I went back a last time, and offered money. It worked!

Besides locations which I had to find. We faced difficulties with audio and the sound guy that helped didn't use the -20DB settings with my Zoom H6 so I had a lot of post audio fixing and cleaning up when I came back. I shot the entire thing with my Sony a7sii and a Osmo that the Hong Kong Director of Photography (DP) rented. We practically just found places to shoot at, I tell the DP what type of shots and framings I wanted, bam bam bam! Shoot and move, run and gun kind of project. We shot this in just 2 days. Hell of an experience man!

 How has becoming an MM2 Entertainment Digital Content Producer changed the way you work? How have they supported you?

Well, mostly they just source for sponsors or fund my videos like Goldfish. I sold it to them and they loved it so they support me in that sense. I am close with them because I acted in their film 4 Love last December. We are also working on an action web series soon.

What’s the most memorable scene in Goldfish for you?

The slow motion montage of Apple and I in the middle from the night market to the cycling (we had to borrow a bicycle). Those were good times. Huge shout out to Spencer, my Irish producer friend who helped me out in Hong Kong.



Any plans for another short film either as a director or act or both? Which is more difficult and which do you enjoy more?

Yes of course. My producer, Isaac and I are planning more of these. We want to make nice films with messages more than just slapstick funny videos on YouTube. I definitely love both aspects and I'm huge on editing all my videos myself. I love editing too.

Any advice for young filmmakers and those looking to get their work seen online?

Just do it. Talk is cheap these days. Millennials have to just get a camera, start shooting and experimenting and getting more experience under their belts. I'm not very good yet and am constantly improving daily. A tip is to watch a lot of movies and films. Draw your inspiration from events that happened to you. For example, Goldfish was a true story based on me. Except no fishes we harmed in the making of this film.

Have you considered sending some of your films to film festivals?
Do you think film festival success and online success is mostly mutually exclusive (i.e. you cannot have both)

I would love to send them but I need to find out how.

Catch Goldfish, here:





Written by Rifyal Giffari 


For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'The Longest-Distance Relationship' by Lee Sin Yee

March 1, 2017, 9:15 pm
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The Longest-Distance Relationship is a light-hearted Singaporean documentary on a serious topic. Its premise is that a team of four film-school friends—one Buddhist, one atheist, one Christian and one Taoist—take turns to explore each other's religion and their personal takes on their faith. The documentary is made with the lightest of touches, peppered throughout with a casual humour about the contradictions and confusions that each of the four filmmakers has in their relationship with their faith.

This buoyant personal approach means that the documentary does not seek to be comprehensive in exploring the state of inter-faith relations in Singapore. Yet, as it turns out, this approach pays off with huge dividends, offering a glimpse into how Singaporeans can broach such a sensitive topic with thoughtfulness and curiosity, but without crossing over into offence.

Here are three key insights to be drawn from the film's approach:

1) The film shows how it can be okay to start out without a comprehensive knowledge of others' religions—or even of your own. In one unforgettable early sequence, the young filmmakers visit a temple and ask an auntie selling joss sticks why there is a statue of Confucius for visitors to pray to, even though Confucius was a mortal. This one earnest question leads to a hilarious pile-up of people being drawn into the scene, as the auntie asks her various acquaintances in turn about the statue's theological significance.

Religious sceptics may be quick to scoff this scene as a sign that people can believe in things and engage in practices that they don't even understand. Yet, on the other hand, the scene also reveals how many of us don't need to have a full picture of everything in order to start making meaning out of what we're given. Likewise, it shows how a single harmless question about an under-examined practice can spiral into a far longer journey of interrogating what we don't know. In other words, the film tries to be sweetly forgiving in its recognition that not everyone has the answers or wants to seek them; but it also manages, at the same time, to insist on having the curiosity and courage to ask.

2) The film also shows how we can adjust our beliefs for the people we love. Another sweetly forgiving (and funny) scene comes courtesy of one of the filmmakers' Taoist mothers, who initially disallowed her children from eating beef at all. Gradually, however, she loosened her restrictions because of her daughter's anaemia—to the point where she would even buy the braised beef cup noodles for her children, but insist that they not eat it at the coffee table in front of the goddess' altar. (Yet, as one of her children jokingly points out, it isn't as if the goddess wouldn't know!)

Again, a harsh interpretation of this scene would harp on the mother's lack of consistency, and on the arbitrariness of the religious rules in the first place. This harshness can be understandable, especially when it comes from people who have bore the brunt of such arbitrary rules from others who don't know them well. Yet the scene also teaches us that harshness may not always be the solution, because it is the loving relationship between the mother and her children that led to her eventual shift in her beliefs, even as they extend her the dignity of letting her keep a smidgen of her rules intact.

3) But the film also shows how we might not always come to a consensus, and must sometimes accept that we disagree. The film isn't so naive as to believe that people will always adjust their beliefs in the name of love. Instead, it dares to dwell willingly on some of the more fraught aspects of loving people who share different beliefs. For instance, in an uncharacteristically tense scene of this film, one of the filmmakers admits her struggle with her belief that her friends are headed to hell. How can one respond to that? Her admission, after all, is made from genuine concern for people she cares about, and not from the heinous dismissal of strangers who play no real part in her lives. The film dangles at this moment, unsure of how to proceed—perhaps understanding that, within the scope of its shooting schedule, the issue is not something that can be so quickly resolved.



From these insights, we can thus see that The Longest-Distance Relationship is a crucial first step in raising the level of discourse that Singaporeans need to have about our nation’s melting pot of various religions and faiths. We need that discourse more than ever, now that we find ourselves in a global age of rising sentiment against feared minority groups. We cannot assume that Singapore is immune to this trend just because we have yet to encounter a state of emergency—an economic recession, an immigration crisis, a terrorist attack—that shuts down our rational selves and unleashes our unfounded suspicions against the other. The efforts made in The Longest-Distance Relationship take us some way into addressing this danger.

But we need to take these efforts a step further. For all of its strengths, The Longest-Distance Relationship is still centred only on four Chinese women; does not touch upon Islam, Hinduism or other faiths; and doesn't quite have the scope to answer all (or perhaps any) of the questions that it has the boldness to pry into. Nonetheless, it achieves enough to absolve it of the charges of 'egotism' and 'narcissism', two labels that the filmmakers pre-emptively slap on themselves in their film's opening moments, to ward off accusations about the film's limits. If egotism and narcissism can lead us to such witty and revealing insights about a topic that Singaporeans don't explore enough, then perhaps our film scene only deserves a lot more of it.

The film is available for viewing from Viddsee's Singapore Film Channel.


Reviewed by Colin Low

For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'The Lying Theory' by Lauren Teo

March 1, 2017, 9:16 pm
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The Lying Theory starts with a simple premise: that a mistrusting girl has developed an ability to see a counter floating above everyone's heads that clocks the number of times that they tell lies... except that one day, in culinary school, she encounters a boy whose counter remains firmly at zero. Will she stop thinking everyone is a liar? Will the boy remain the angel he appears to be? That premise earned writer-director Lauren Teo a nomination for Best Script at the 5th Singapore Short Film Awards in 2014. We can’t stop getting amused with the child actors in this film who blatantly stole the show.



You can actually watch the film on Viddsee. We’ve linked it here. It is showcased under the Viddsee Singapore Film Channel.




We actually spoke to Lauren back in 2014 about her film. Here was our little conversation.

That’s quite a lot of effort for a short film, given the variety of scenes (a home, school, culinary institute..). How many days did you take to complete filming and do post-production work?

We shot for about six days in total and took approximately one and a half months for post-production

As we know, casting child actors can be really challenging. How did you/your team manage to get such a convincing child actress to play young Claire and direct her into her role so well?

Kyra showed up to our auditions all confident and eager to to perform her role as Claire. Ever since that first meeting, I was won over by her natural flair for acting and her charisma - I knew she had to be young Claire. Directing Kyra was a rewarding experience: I would run through the scene with her and she'd understand what I wanted to achieve, always asking questions and giving suggestions of what she thought her version of Claire would do. It was really fun and engaging to in discussions and directing her.



What were some of the bigger difficulties you/your team encountered during production?

The biggest challenge would have to be getting everyone’s understanding and co-operation throughout the shoot, and managing time and forces beyond our control.  For example, shoot time overran for about two to three hours for the classroom scene and we were supposed to move on to the house scene, but it rained quite heavily so we had to postpone the shoot. It was a huge effort to reschedule everyone’s time.

Were the actors playing Larry and Claire really culinary students or did you/your team have contacts in the school which allowed filming within the premises?

Our actors were not culinary students.  TP's culinary school generously provided us with facilities to shoot, as well as some insight to the culinary environment so we could ensure our film was true to industry.

Could you share with us the type of equipment you/your team used for shooting ‘The Lying Theory’? Would you also mind telling us a rough cost breakdown for the production? (We understand that it was a student final year project.)

We used 5dm3 and zoom h4n for the camera and sound respectively. We rented a circular dolly to achieve the 'transformation' shot and other basic lights.

What inspired ‘The Lying Theory’?

Growing up and having experienced the ups and downs of friendship just as everyone else has, I'd always wondered what it'd be like if I could just have some sort of spidey sense or super power that could tell me which person I could trust... that led to the conception of The Lying Theory. I wanted to make a film about friendship and trust. I was inspired by the style of  Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, which tells the tale of a lonely misfit in such a whimsical and surreal manner - it touched on heavy topics but never was it dreary or depressing.

Written by Colin Low

For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.

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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'Aik Khoon' by Chris Yeo and Andie Chen

March 1, 2017, 9:18 pm
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Aik Khoon, an old short film from 2005, by Chris Yeo and Andie Chen, will be screened as part of the National Museum of Singapore's Cinémathèque Selects programme. 

The short film centers on the friendship between a taxi driver and his childhood friend. In an unusual arrangement, Chong Hua rides shotgun in the taxi even as Aik Khoon picks up customers. They keep up a banter throughout the film, with Chong Hua being the more talkative of the two. A female customer leaves the taxi after being stared at lewdly by Chong Hua, a moment of sexual harassment that is played for laughs. Chong Hua is like a parasite that Aik Khoon can't shake off, one that he picked up in primary school and that has been with him ever since. Yet the other side of the coin is he probably knows Aik Khoon better than anyone.


The film takes a turn in tone after showing the strained relationship between Chong Hua and his son. The shallow babble concerned primarily with objectifying women past and present, suddenly falls away into something heavier, the weight of lost dreams and ambitions. 



Chong Hua is a provocative character, irreverent and politically incorrect. He is perhaps a caricature or larger-than-life version of the 'chikopek' (perverted uncle) who hangs out at kopitiams. His son's response to him is a mixture of revulsion, sympathy and secondhand embarrassment. Aik Khoon, on the other hand, is turned inward, with controlled facial expressions and a less frenetic movement. His back story is implied to be one of a fall from societal prestige. The thoughtful sound design helps to prop up his character's emotions in the film. 

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We spoke to director Chris Yeo and got him to jog his 12-year old memory of the film for us.

Your father plays the main character in the film, how was the experience of directing your father? 
It's not hard to imagine the kind of awkward situation directing one's parent, especially when the script is based off a certain reality and for him to confront the image of himself as characterized by his son. The arrangement was also that Andie did most of the direct communication with the actors while I kept a necessary distance behind the camera as the writer/cinematographer. In a sense, it was therapeutic, without us speaking too much. I reached out to him through the script and he responded back to me by his performance through the camera. 

Why the decision to make a film about him? 
My family was in bad financial shape at that point of time. I saw a proud man falling from grace and how it had affected the relationships around him, between his wife, his children, his friends and himself. At that age, I could only use the tools that I had at hand to deal with this. So I made a film. 

Did a real friendship inspire the film? 
The friend in the film was a collage of the colourful friends my father kept around him. When he was still driving a taxi, he would sometimes give me a lift and there was always a friend in the front seat who would tag along, even when he was on duty ferrying passengers. I could quietly observe their interaction from the backseat with a certain invisibility - a writer's dream. I remember, there were two of them whose name was both "Tony". It was quite absurd. 

Greatest challenge making the film? 
It's hard to emphasize one challenge over the other (we were still shooting on film then) but since we are on the topic of my father, I remember a time when he saw in the script that I have come to understand things that he would not have wanted me to know, not yet, not then. But still he managed to bare himself to the camera - with me hiding behind it. I cannot imagine that to be easy. It was only after some years, maybe five, that we spoke about this film again. 



This month's Cinematheque Selects focusses on sound design and showcases the short films works of sound designer Lim Ting Li. Aik Khoon is one of the short films she has done sound design for and she has this to say about her work in the film....

Aik Khoon was one of my first works and I think I was trying to fill it up with as many sounds as I could. It was also one of my first time working with a composer (the very talented Teo Weiyong) and it forever cemented the way of how I think sound and music must work interwoven and hand-in-hand together.

Event Details

Date: Saturday 11 March 2017
Time: 2 pm 
Venue: Gallery Theatre, Basement, National Museum of Singapore 

Cinémathèque Selects is a monthly double-bill screening that brings together a Singapore film and a second film that inspired it. Each double-bill is accompanied by a “Question and Answer” session with the Singaporean film-maker. Focusing on diverse aspects of film-making, from directing to producing, script writing to cinematography and art direction, the series is a study of important local productions. 

For the latest classification ratings and information, please visit www.nationalmuseum.sg.
Ticketing Information 
Standard Ticket: $11 for one film, $16 for both films 
Concession (for student, senior aged 60 & above & NSF with valid ID): $9 
Group Bookings: $6.50 per ticket for a minimum of 5 pax 
Tickets are available from SISTIC at http://www.sistic.com.sg/events/ccinema0317 
Ticket price excludes $1 SISTIC fee.

Written by Jacqueline Lee
For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'Before the Wedlock House' by Liao Jiekai

March 1, 2017, 9:19 pm
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A wedding video filled with irony. Not the best gift to your childhood friend who is getting married. But a great gift to the audience. Filmmaker Liao Jiekai opens a door into the mind of a bride who is about to be received by her groom, one where the romanticism of a wedding mixes with the practicalities of the rituals, where mushiness mixes with some delightful humour.


In ‘Before the Wedlock House’, the bride allows filmmaker Liao to follow her in close lengths documenting her pre-dawn conversations with her make-up artist and the early birds in her wedding entourage. In conversational chapters, we learn about the relationships between her, the filmmaker and the greater environment that surrounds them.

The film relentlessly documents how the bride disparages the filmmaker’s profession and craft, saying she might only watch his films if they were like Koran dramas. Yet, she has inadvertently brought the film and the artistry of Liao’s vision to life by way of her matter-of-fact straight-talking honesty. The film also slaps on another ironic layer with her describing how she used to idolize the filmmaker when they were children, though she now calls him a ‘poor artist’.  



On another level, the film offers us a peep-hole into society through the make-up artist’s anecdotal contributions in the conversation, alluding to unhappy couples who fight before or during their wedding or family troubles that have dented many ceremonies. Together with objective and sentimentally detached shots like the establishing pre-dawn HDB wide shot, they seem to point towards a wider commentary the filmmaker wishes to make. Interestingly, the filmmaker’s also found a good defending voice in the make-up artists who tells the practical bride that the filmmaker friend may one day become famous and earn lots of money. 

The film’s resonance also lies in the duality the bride displays and how the camera has captured her varied moments. She is chirpy and humorous at one moment and reflective at another. Maybe it’s the veil that clouds our view of her, giving her a natural atmospheric aura, even though her behavioral swings are undeniable. Or perhaps it’s the camera’s attentiveness to the subject, celebrating her joys on at one moment with full-on shots of her beaming smile, while meditating on her pockets of contemplation the next moment with the dreamy, white-washed overtones. 

Review by Jeremy Sing 

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Before the Wedlock House, a short film by Liao Jiekai, will be screened as part of the National Museum of Singapore's Cinémathèque Selects programme. This month's Cinematheque Selects focusses on sound design and showcases the short films works of sound designer Lim Ting Li. Before the Wedlock House is one of the short films she has worked on and she has this to say about her work in the film....

Wedlock is a personal favourite of mine - Not just to work on but as a film. The audience is put in such a privileged and rare position, staying on the bride's side of a customary Chinese wedding procession. As with documentaries, sometimes the realness of the footage comes at the expense of good sound recording, so quite a bit of work was spent trying to raise the clarity of the conversations. I love it that we're hearing what the bride hears, all the ruckus outside her room and anticipating the groom's arrival with her. 


We picked the brains of director Liao Jiekai with some burning questions and here's what he has to say...

Was the film's product planned or totally incidental? 
The production of the film was a spontaneous decision. The night before her wedding, my cousin called me to remind me of the red packet I am supposed to give her on her wedding day; I decided to make a video for her instead of giving her money, partly because I didn't like to be told what to do. So on the day itself, I filmed the wedding as a one man crew, giving myself the strict parameters of only staying in the bride's room. I edited the film a year later, and made it into the short documentary it is. Like all films, it is definitely planned and constructed; just that the content of the film was entirely spontaneous - I just shoot what I see and did not stage anything. 

Why black and white? 
I shot the film with an old HD P2 camcorder that has very bad light sensitivity compared to the video technology of today. As a result, I had to push the image both in production and in post, resulting in an extremely noisy image that has very muted colors. The luminance quality of the image suffered so much that I thought might as well just make it black and white. 

Why call the marriage the wedlock house? 
American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage made a film titled "Wedlock House: An Intercourse", which is a really beautiful but also abstract film about a couple making love. So I thought, maybe I can borrow the term "Wedlock House". Although my film is for sure nothing like his.




Event Details

Date: Saturday 11 March 2017
Time: 2pm
Venue: Gallery Theatre, Basement, National Museum of Singapore 

Cinémathèque Selects is a monthly double-bill screening that brings together a Singapore film and a second film that inspired it. Each double-bill is accompanied by a “Question and Answer” session with the Singaporean film-maker. Focusing on diverse aspects of film-making, from directing to producing, script writing to cinematography and art direction, the series is a study of important local productions. 

For the latest classification ratings and information, please visit www.nationalmuseum.sg. Ticketing Information 
Standard Ticket: $11 for one film, $16 for both films 
Concession (for student, senior aged 60 & above & NSF with valid ID): $9 
Group Bookings: $6.50 per ticket for a minimum of 5 pax 
Tickets are available from SISTIC at http://www.sistic.com.sg/events/ccinema0317 
Ticket price excludes $1 SISTIC fee.

Written by Jacqueline Lee

For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'The Songs We Sang'我们唱着的歌 by Eva Tang

March 1, 2017, 9:22 pm
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On the surface, this film seems just like an anthology of xinyao 新谣 music over its active decade in the 80s and early 90s, something made for diehard fans of xinyao. But the film The Songs We Sang by Eva Tang proves to be more than nostalgia or a trip down memory lane. It is a history lesson that answers and also raises so many questions, with a undeniable nuance of pain and regret. Like why Mandarin has become the poorer cousin of English as choice language among many Singaporean Chinese. Like the tumultuous chapter in Singapore’s education history that is Nanyang University. Framed against the socio-political events that shaped Singapore and our culture, the film depicts a coming-of-age of our identity and attaches context and meaning behind the most recognisable xinyao hits sung over the years. Many Singapore films have been made in tribute to xinyao such as Lim Suat Yen’s The Road Less Travelled (1997) and Chai Yee Wei’s The Girl in Pinafore. But none are as complete and anchored as The Songs We Sang. It is Singapore’s quintessential xinyao movie.


Here are 10 priceless moments from this documentary.

1. Onscreen meltdown - Watching Zhang Fan, a Nanyang University alumni, and pioneer of the Singapore Chinese music and poetry movement (a prelude to the xinyao movement) break down as he recounted the closing of Nanyang University. Certainly, an emotional anchor-point in the film.


2. A rare reunion - Former students of the defunct Nanyang University reunite in a chorus rendition of 挥手. Don’t forget these students were in their teens when attending university. Today, many of them have received their pioneer generation packages and are silver on top. They look like your typical uncles and aunties, but it’s so hard to fathom the fact that some of them were part of the only kind of student activism we ever had in Singapore. They held more placards and banners than we’ve ever done for G-dragon and Super Junior.




3. Lost in translation - An old television footage of a real school science class in progress with the Chinese-conversant students struggling to understand science taught in English.



4. First ever Xinyao hit - An old TV recording of the song 邂逅, which was the first xinyao song to claim a spot on the Mandarin Top 10 charts on radio. The recording features a young, earnest-looking Eric Moo and his duet-counterpart, 黃譓赬, whose studious bespectacled-look harks back to a formative time in Singapore’s Chinese pop music scene， when all you needed was a guitar and a sweet melody, and perhaps something the show producers fancied - currents of soap bubbles!






5. An old school concert - For fans of xinyao sweetheart Dawn Gan, who was Singapore’s first ever full-time professional xinyao singer performing under a label, the earliest singing footage of her can be found in this documentary. Still in her school uniform, she delivered the song 如何对你说 (which later became a TV drama serial theme song), in her signature pitch-perfect bird-like voice, during what looked like a weekend Chinese LDDS (Language, Drama and Debating Society) ECA event in school.

6. Xinyao in Malay - On of the most surprising discoveries of the film was a footage from an old Sing Singapore concert featuring a young Malay contestant singing a famous xinyao song 阿Ben阿Ben (original song track in video below) adapted into Malay. The transposition lends not only a different tongue but a quasi-reggae twist as well!




7. Small fish in a big pond - Watching an old footage of the Chinese pop music world’s answer to ‘We Are The World’, 明天会更好. ‘We Are The World’ was all-stars charity single helmed by Michael Jackson in 1985 in aid of the African famine relief. Albeit a copycat, 明天会更好 still featured an all-star line-up of the brightest in Chinese pop in the 80s with heavyweights like Tsai Chin, Su Rei, Tracy Huang and Jenny Tseng. Buried somewhere in the chorus of singers was Singapore’s own xinyao trio ‘The Straws’ 水草三重唱. See if you can spot them in this video.





8. 80s Gameshow Kitsch - It’s been a long time since we last saw the insecticide brand Mortein being advertised on TV. With its signature orange cap, it used to compete with Bygone for share of TV ad space in the 80s. In The Songs We Sang, Mortein takes centrestage in a hilarious replay of a ‘live’ game on Channel 8’s regular primetime variety show 缤纷八三. Complete with the game-show hosts sporting bona-fide 80s shoulder pads and puffy hairdos, contestants play to win supplies of the Mortein insecticide that could last for years. Times were different then. We had more cockroaches to deal with.






9. Finding the winning theme song - Faithful Channel 8 fans (of a certain age) will twitch their ears when they hear the familiar theme song of Channel 8’s first ever drama serial, The Awakening 雾锁南洋, a cross-generational period drama serial that depicts the lives of Chinese Singaporeans from pre-war to post-war. What many may not recall is how the theme song came about. The Songs We Sang carries clear footage of the song contest organised by the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) held to find that winning theme song.


10. Banned and back again - In an understatedly heartwarming segment, eminent xinyao composer Liang Wern Fook, a signature face of the movement, attempts singing the song 麻雀衔竹枝 with his father. The Cantonese song was banned in Singapore when it was first released due to the ambitions of the Speak Mandarin Campaign (to rid Singapore of the use of dialects). The ban was then lifted in 2013. His poignant duet with his father speaks bittersweet volumes of lost time and heritage.

After a successful general theatrical release in Singapore last year, here is your chance to watch the film again this March. The Filmic Eye in conjunction with the National Arts Council’s Arts in Your Neighbourhood initiative, are bringing this film back at two screening events. Event details in this link.

Fri 17 Mar, 6:30pm @ Viva Business Park - Urban Park
*Sat 18 Mar, 6:30pm  @ Our Tampines Hub - Festive Plaza (*with dialogue with director Eva Tang)
Both screenings are outdoor and free for the public

The Saturday screening is part of a Xinyao Music & Movie Night which will feature experienced singers Tong Yek Suan and Tristan Ong from ETC Music, who will perform live some of the most popular songs from the movement. The movie screening follows this with director Eva Tang in attendance for a post-screening dialogue.

《我们唱着的歌》是新加坡独立电影人邓宝翠以新谣为主题，花了两年多时间制作的华语人文纪录片。让大家重温新谣的发展，回味当年这小岛国的独特音乐岁月。《我们唱着的歌》从历史的角度，配合人文的情怀，以细腻的手法带出轰动一时的新谣运动缘起和转变。纪录片放映前，别错过观赏《闲杂人等》唐玉璇和王志文的演唱，曲目包括当年受欢迎的新谣歌曲。

导演邓宝翠将在Our Tampines Hub与观众对话交流。


Written by Jeremy Sing

For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'Durian Picking' by Kray Chen

March 1, 2017, 9:23 pm
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Photo credit: Still from Durian Picking by Kray Chen

In the wee hours of the morning, Kray Chen follows his durian obsessed father into the jungle, where they meet other equally passionate durian lovers looking for the fruit in the wild. This quirky short film captures the eccentric rituals of those willing to go the extra mile for their favorite fruit, providing a welcome alternative portrait of urban Singapore.




Written, directed and produced by Kray Chen a visual artist based in Singapore, Durian Picking was previously screen as part of the 27th Singapore International Film Festival in 2016 in the Singapore Panorama - Short Film category.

The short film clearly showcases Chen's visual style and finesse in taking a relatively simple storyline of hunting for wild durians into a nostalgic journey for many Singaporeans. Although many of us might not have personally hunted for wild durians, we are all keenly aware of an emotional childhood attachment to this King of Fruit as either a revered or hated fruit in our individual households. Chen is also able to weave into this short film, glimpses of the bond between father and son.



This film is part of Stories That Matter, a programme byObjectifs that looks at critical issues in our world through photography and film.

The film will be screened together with another film that also looks at food. Bugs, to be exact! Bugs, the film is a documentary that follows a team from Copenhagen-based Nordic Food Lab who travel the world to learn what some of the two billion people who already eat insects have to say. Watch them farm, cook and taste insects with communities in Europe, Australia, Mexico, Kenya, Japan and beyond. During their journey they encounter everything from revered termite queens and desert-delicacy honey ants to venemous giant hornets and long-horned grasshoppers trapped using powerful floodlights, that sometimes cause their catchers temporary blindness.


Screening details

22 March 2017, Wednesday at 7.30PM
Durian Picking + Bugs
Venue: Chapel Gallery, Objectifs
Entry by Donation



Image credit: Still of Safari by Ulrich Seidl part of Stories That Matter programme by Objectifs




This year's Stories That Matter features the theme ‘Conspicuous Consumption’ where ideas regarding patterns of consumption and their effects will be examined. From food sustainability to the ethics of trophy hunting, a selection of documentaries screened during the week will look at the ways in which our habits of consumption affect the world around us. Hailing from Myanmar to South Africa, these films are powerful statements that seek to inform and inspire.


The programme also features a collaboration between Objectifs and independent photographer Arati Kumar-Rao as well as the EverydayClimateChange Instagram initiative to highlight issues of consumption. 


Talks
- In Conversation: Arati Kumar-Rao on 16 March 2017, 7.30pm - 9.00pm 
- Documentaries in the Modern World: Creating Compelling Content on 25 March 2017, 3.00pm - 4.00pm

Specialty Workshop
Visual Storytelling & Social Advocacy by Arati Kumar-Rao on 18 March 2017, 9.00am - 5.00pm

Screenings
22 MARCH, WEDNESDAY / 7.30PM / REGISTER
Durian Picking by Kray Chen / Singapore / 17 min / 2016 / PG
Bugs by Andreas Johnsen / Denmark / 76 min / 2016 / Rating TBC

23 MARCH, THURSDAY / 7.30PM / REGISTER
Cameraperson by Kirsten Johnson / 103 min / 2016 / Rating PG13

24 MARCH, FRIDAY / 7.30PM / REGISTER
Safari by Ulrich Seidl / 91 min / 2016 / PG13

25 MARCH, SATURDAY / 7.30PM / REGISTER
City of Jade by Midi Z / Taiwan, Myanmar / 98 min / 2016 / M18

Written by Ivan Choong

For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Mar 2017: 'Jimami Tofu' by BananaMana Films

March 1, 2017, 9:24 pm
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BananaMana Films, helmed by Jason Chan and Christian Lee, made a Netflix hit ‘Perfect Girl’ for just $1000. They are back with a new delicious tale that called ‘Jimami Tofu’. This is their first feature film and it is a marriage of food and love, that takes place in the seaside setting of Okinawa, Japan. In the film, a Chinese Singaporean chef, formerly working in Tokyo, finds himself in Okinawa begging a disgruntled old chef to teach him traditional Okinawan food. A top Japanese food critic finds herself in Singapore on an eye opening discovery of Southeast Asian cuisine. In reality both are looking for each other after an emotional breakup years ago when she left him without a trace. Emotionally crippled by their breakup he searches her home town for her but discovers instead the art of traditional Okinawan food. Through it he learns the incredible balance of two cultures: Chinese and Japanese – the homely, warmth of Chinese style cooking with the precision, delicacy and visual artistry of Japanese cuisine: a balance they never had in their relationship. When she suddenly appears in Okinawa looking to find closure he cooks and serves her their final meal. Through it she discovers what she had been yearning for all these years – the beauty of both cultures balanced to perfection and realises he has found the key to being together again.





Sounds like you can expect some serious food porn in Jimami Tofu. The film was born out of a an invitation from the Okinawan Film Office to a fully paid scouting trip to explore film locations in Okinawa. Then one thing led to another, or rather one meal led to another. The filmmakers Jason and Christian lapped up everything in Okinawa from the food to waters, the hills, the orchards and finally inspiration hit and Jimami Tofu was born. But food and scenery aside, the film is also about love and coming home to where your heart belongs.
 
Watch the film trailer here:



The cast of Jimami Tofu includes Jason Chan, Mari Yamamoto, Rino Nakasone and Masane Tsukayama. 


Landing his first major role as the Green Samurai Ranger in Power Rangers Ninja Storm, Jason Chan worked on multiple films , TV and theatre roles in Singapore before starting Banamana films together with Christian Lee. Acting in all of their productions, Jason will once again take up the lead role in this production.

Mari Yamamoto an up and coming actress who has been doing various productions such as Allure (2014) and Bourek (2015) . Taking the lead actress role in Jimami Tofu, she will be showcasing her acting skills pair with her strong command of both the English and Japanese languages. She will be playing Yuki. 
 
Rino Nakasone is well known in the dance choreography and working with various pop celebrities like Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani and also Korean bands like SHINee and Girls Generation too. She decided to give acting a shot and will be playing Nami. 

Part of the cast includes classic Okinawa actor, voice artist and narrator Masatane Tsukayama. Spanning a career of 53 years as of 2017 , Mr Tsukayama has seen and done it all. His body of work embraces various genres and left a strong impression both in the film industry and the Japanese animation industry too. He will be playing Sakumoto. 

 

 

 
 
Here is how you can watch the film this month!
 
The filmmakers will be holding a series of private screenings in Singapore in March. We are offering SINdie readers a chance join in some of these screenings. If you are interested, simply drop us an email now at sindie@sindie.sg 
 
Alternatively, look out for our Facebook post on the upcoming private screenings and you can respond to our posts to get invited!
 

Pictures from their 1st private screening at the National Museum on 28 Feb 2017
Lucky for the filmmakers, they have actually secured pre-sales agreements with international distributors including Korean media giant IHQ, Japanese global TV platform VIKI and Encore Inflight, as announced at Asia Television Forum last year.
 
 
About BananaMana Films
 
BananaMana Films is an award-winning Singapore production company that specializes in creating Asian scripted dramas in English for film, TV and web. Their most recent film project “Bang Bang Club” won the prestigious Platinum REMI Award at the Houston International Film Festival 2016. Their first drama “What Do Men Want?” was broadcast on national TV in 2014 and was awarded “Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series” in LA. It is currently under negotiation for acquisition by Sundance Channel SEA. Their second drama series “Perfect Girl” went on to win 7 international awards from 16 nominations. Most notable being Best Drama Series, Toronto Web Festival 2015 and Outstanding Writing, Directing and Drama at Los Angeles Web Festival 2015. Furthermore, Perfect Girl became the first Singaporean drama to be acquired by global TV platform VIKI. It has since also been acquired by Encore Inflight.
Founded by Christian Lee and Jason Chan, BananaMana Films has quickly become one of the premiere production companies in Singapore for narrative film and TV production. Film awards of note: Gold Remi, Best Family Feature at Houston International Film Festival 2008, for the movie SLAM, which Christian Lee produced and was acquired for worldwide distribution by Sony International.

Written by Deitrich Mohan

For the full list of March 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10: 10 local films to catch in March 2017

March 1, 2017, 9:25 pm
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I dare put forward a question this month. Where do the new batches of filmmakers who graduate from film school in Singapore year after year go? Judging from the names floating around in the film festival circuit, only a handful have really sunk their teeth into pursuing film festival success, a supposed ‘holy grail’ of filmmaking. Are the rest swimming in a different pond?


For a filmmaker today, getting your completed film screened at a film festival in hope of earning some of those laurels next to the name of your films, is no longer the only road to success available. You can be making films for the internet audience, aiming for that $5,000 prize in a 72-hour film challenge or riding the technology wave with VR-content and the likes. Thanks to online viewing platforms like YouTube and Netflix, the game is changing and some of the best talents are turning their attention and energy towards the internet.


We cast our nets wider this month of March, in search of gems online alongside your traditional screening platforms and events. And we were delightfully surprised. Apart from our regular Viddsee picks, film productions from YouTube Channels like Butterworks and Cheokboard Studios show us why they are gaining audiences like wild fire.


In our March STOP10 list, check out internet hits like Goldfish and Hooped on You, made for the Netflix generation. Our usual line-up of films in their conventional format remain with film festival favourites like The Songs We Sang, Lang Tong and Aik Khoon (an old one from 2005) making reprises. Lastly, if you love food, escape to sunny Okinawa to savour some Jimami Tofu. Actually,we are not talking about the dish but a new feature film about food and relationships. Screenings are by invitation only but we will tell you how you can be invited!

Let's start the countdown.


Lang Tong

3 March, Friday, 7.30pm - 10.30pm, SCAPE Gallery


Judging from the warm response to the film during the 25th Singapore International Film Festival premiere and general commercial release, Singaporeans are not that prudish after all. We need some naughty thrills in our lives to beat the monotony of our weekly routines. Lang Tong, Singapore’s first erotic thriller, is quite a jolting ride for the senses with its delectable plot twists, eye-candy cast, food porn, gore and of course, sex. Before the ladies say this is a film made for the lads, this film will also teach men a good lesson about womanising. Ladies will be particularly satisfied at how a pair of female fatales hack the living daylights out of the bad guy. Simply Bak Kut Tehlicious! This screening is paired with a dialogue session with Sam Loh, the director behind all this wickedness.

Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.


Hooped on You

Butterworks YouTube Channel

Bubble tea girl meets basketball player in this adolescent feature-length school drama with a noticeable tinge of the candy-hued goofiness found in Korean idol dramas. Marrying television aesthetics with film narratives, Hooped on You has this uncanny ability to get you hooked. The premise is not original - high school crushes, BGR, and the dilemma of a rich-boy versus poor-boy love triangle. But the delivery is no holds barred earnest. Not sure if they engaged an acting coach, but the film features a cast of first-time actors who are able to ham it up almost as well as Jack Neo’s motley crew of sidekicks. Made by Butterworks, a digital content producer, we bet you will find it hard to press stop on your computer for that toilet break.
Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.

Goldfish
Cheokboard Studios YouTube Channel
If you are a YouTube addict, Jonathan Cheok might not be a stranger to you. He started Cheokboard Studios in 2013, producing content for YouTube and has since gained a formidable following with about 215,000 subscribers and over 37 million views. In addition, if you find his face familiar, you must have been watching Season One of Singapore Idol. Jonathan made it into the Top 24. Wacky YouTube channels with videos made for mindless sofa entertainment are aplenty but Cheokboard Studios does its humour with class and wit. Comedy aside, there are also simple love stories found on the channel. Goldfish is one tasty catch. He took his camera and crew to Hong Kong for this sweet tale of encounter and fate. Also makes you want to take a second glance at black goldfishes the next time you visit an aquarium.
Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.

The Longest-Distance Relationship

Viddsee, Singapore Film Channel


This documentary, with its chummy band of four teenage friends, seems like a light on the sensitive topic of religious beliefs. But it is more profound than what appears on the surface like a ‘non-serious documentary’. The four friends, each with a different religion (one Taoist, one Buddhist, one Christian, one atheist) explore the quirks of each other’s religious beliefs with a surprising amount of honesty. It asks daring questions to people who might possibly take offence, such as questions about religious idols and er, going to hell. Brave.

Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.

The Lying Theory

Viddsee, Singapore Film Channel


Imagine a world in which everyone lies and you have the special power to tell if the person talking to you is lying. Would the world be a better place or a worse place? As we know, sometimes, it’s better not to know the truth and live with some false hope! In the film The Lying Theory, Claire is the most mistrustful girl in the whole wide world. She has an in-built lying detector that shows her how much the people she is talking are lying and everyone gets a score. The higher the score, the bigger the lie. So she trusts almost no one. Until one day, she meets a boy whose score is zero and something inside her starts to change…. Which begs a question. Are boys bigger liars or girls? Something to think about.

Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.

Aik Khoon
11 Mar, Sat, 2pm, National Museum of Singapore Gallery Theatre


This quirky little short film called Aik Khoon was quite an oddball standout in the nascent filmmaking scene more than 10 years ago. Aik Khoon is a world-weary looking taxi driver goes jalan jalan around town with his chikopek old friend, Chong Hua. With his colourful language, Chong Hua pisses off half the people around him and in the taxi car, but is a source of entertainment for Aik Khoon, who seems mired in some form of deep thought, with his demeanour screaming ‘Í just lost $10000 at Resorts World Sentosa’. Aik Khoon, the film, is also interesting on another level - Aik Khoon is played by Aik Khoon himself. Director Chris Yeo cast his own dad in this film where his dad was asked to play himself. Chris has some stories for us on how he played director to his dad.
Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.


Beyond the Wedlock House

11 Mar, Sat, 2pm, National Museum of Singapore Gallery Theatre


This film proves that reality can be stranger than fiction. Beyond the Wedlock House, the short film, finds an unintentional narrative within a real wedding video footage (or maybe it was more like calculated coincidence). Filmmaker Liao Jiekai plants himself right in the corner of the make-up room of the bride, who seems to be a cousin, documenting her conversations with him and the make-up artist. They talk career, growing up and hints of other topics. Not sure how the bride remained her candid self knowing this was going on video, but the result is as honest as sibling conversations can get. And fit for a museum audience too!
Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.

The Songs We Sang

17 Mar, Fri, 6.30pm, Viva Business Park - Urban Park
18 Mar, Sat, 6.30pm, Tampines Hub - Festive Plaza (director Eva Tang in attendance)
The following around this film never seems to end. It first premiered to a sold-out screening at the Esplanade Theatre during the 26th Singapore International Film Festival. Then it enjoyed a successful commercial run in the cinemas in 2016, attended even by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, not on official invitation! This month, it is back again with two screenings as part of the National Arts Council’s Arts in the Neighbourhood film screening event. This is Singapore’s quintessential xinyao film, virtually an encyclopedia of xinyao songs that gained prominence from the campuses of the defunct Nanyang University to the old Channel 8 television studios of Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. It is so thoroughly-researched, the film makes you feel you’ve lived a lifetime watching it and you want to stand up and clap when the credits roll.    

Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.


Durian Picking
22 Mar, Wed, 7.30pm, Objectifs Chapel Gallery


Come to Objectifs for a night of durians and bugs on your plate. Not exactly a gastronomic pairing made-in-heaven but certainly an interesting pairing of films as part of a series themed ‘Çonspicuous Consumption’, which examines habits and patterns of human consumption and their effects on the world around us. In Durian Picking, Kray Chen follows his durian-obsessed father into the jungle during the dark wee hours of the morning to look for and pick durians. Shot with a certain rawness akin to The Blair Witch Project, the film is a quirky gaze at his father’s eccentric food-hunting ritual, shot to a somewhat creepy effect as well. From durians, we move on to another food item of acquired taste, bugs. In the accompanying film Bugs, watch lots of Scandinavian men sample creepy crawlies, cooked to perfection, and smack their lips.   
Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.

Jimami Tofu
Private screenings only, dates TBC, look out for our Facebook post on how you can be invited
A Chinese Singaporean chef, formerly working in Tokyo, finds himself in Okinawa begging a disgruntled old chef to teach him traditional Okinawan food. A top Japanese food critic finds herself in Singapore on an eye opening discovery of Southeast Asian cuisine. In reality both are looking for each other after an emotional breakup years ago when she left him without a trace. In seeking food, will they find each other? We think they will, perhaps over a plate of tofu? (Followed by lots of sake!)
For those dying to know: Jimami Tofu is a kind of tofu infused with the subtle aroma of peanuts, found in Okinawa.

Read more about the film and how you can watch ithere.
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ShoutOUT! ASEAN International Film Fest back for its 3rd edition

March 11, 2017, 7:13 am
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The ASEAN International Film Festival & Awards 2017 (AIFFA), in its third edition this year, will showcase over 100 ASEAN films competing for the coveted AIFFA trophies. The films are adjudicated by International and ASEAN jury members. Previous AIFFAs have seen international guests and celebrities including Jackie Chan (pictured above), Michelle Yeoh, Nora Aunor, Ekta Kapoor and Gary Levinsohn.

AIFFA Festival Director Livan Tajang led the AIFFA team at a roadshow in Singapore recently. She pointed out that the biennial event in Kuching, Sarawak, in Borneo has grown in attracting more entries than in previous years.
“More financiers and producers are also participating this time round, as they see the potential of this region to produce outstanding and unique content,” she said, elaborating on the vast market potential of ASEAN and its audience base of over 600-million people.

At AIFFA 2017, AIFFA Biz World, a collaboration between AIFFA and the Southeast Asian Audio-Visual Association (SAVAA), will allow filmmakers to tap SAVAA, which is the region’s largest media investment network comprising creative producers, IP owners, distributors and content financiers.



In fact, AIFFA 2017 has an extended programme that covers not just the three days of the film festival in May, but also a series of events leading to the actual festival  The first of these will be a 3-day Hollywood MasterClass Program in Kuala Lumpur for young filmmakers, and media promotion in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. In April, there will be free ASEAN films every weekend at the popular Godown Amphitheatre Waterfront in Kuching, Sarawak.

The actual 3-day film festival over 4-6 May will include a movie marathon of international and ASEAN films at selected cinemas around Kuching, and an informative Café Crawl at three selected cafes with talks by filmmakers, open to AIFFA delegates to learn, network and share.

And here's something for a bit of fun, the festival is also attempting to break the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest gathering of people in cat costumes on the 4th of May during AIFFA's opening night in Kuching. Kuching, after all, is the Malay word for cat.

The Gala Night on 6th of May will feature a black tie dinner where winners will be announced and awards presented in 16 categories recognizing the talents of directors, directors of photography, actors, writers and editors. These awards also recognize the areas of Lifetime Achievement and Inspiration.

For more information on the festival and how to submit your film, visit www.aiffa2017.com.
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Point and Shoot: 'Smoking Secrets' bags top prize; Watch all entries and vote for your Audience Choice now!

March 20, 2017, 8:47 am
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Over the last weekend on Sunday 19 March, the Point & Shoot competition, concluded with a screening of the top10 entries and the giving out of the top prizes. Smoking Secrets, a short film (pictured above) by Michael Ng & Aria Yeo Zhi Hui about two sisters who catch up over a cigarette while strolling down carpark, bagged the top prize. Between them, one has ‘blossomed’ into a successful career woman while her sister remains aimless. Taking the theme of ‘Bloom’ either figuratively or plain literally, groups of students cracked their heads to produce 3-minute narrative bites over 55 hours during the weekend of 10 to 12 March.  Point & Shoot was open to students in post-secondary educational institutions.

Hall of Shame by Melissa May Garcia & Eric Darmadi, which was a runner-up, is a quirky but funny little short film about being torn between staying and walking away from a relationship.

Another runner-up prize was also given to  Jasmin Liew who made Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, a film about female objectification that features a young girl disfiguring herself.


Winning Special Mention prizes were The Story of Matthew by Matthew Seong, about a toilet cleaner who aspires to achieve something more in his life - literally rags to riches in just three minutes.....

.....as well as Cocoona Matata by Jaime Hong, Jovene Khoo, Vera Sng, Sherlyn Tham and Vera Yap.

Here are the rest of the top 10!
Bloom
by Kelly Phua, Ruth Smalley & Mark Cheong

Late Bloomer
by Joel Tan & Shawn Tan

Perhaps
by Marcus Wong & Xinmin Ng

Blindside
by Jastine Tan Chee Yong & Shafiqah bte Isnawan

Sketches
by Shikhar Gupta & Nigel Gomes

DAHLIA
by Hamzah Fansuri & Tan Wei Lun

And ALL IS NOT OVER. There is an online voting contest for the Audience Choice Award! Simply go to the Facebook page of the organisers nuSTUDIOS Film Productions to watch all the entries in the competition. The album features a screenshot each from the entries. When you click on each screenshot, you will be able to see the YouTube link in the picture description, from which you can watch the entry. Votes are by LIKES on the screenshots.


Vote now from 20th March to 26th March 2017, 23:59! The screen grab with the the most LIKES will win the Audience Choice Award and the filmmakers will get to take home a Zhiyun-tech Crane and a Blackmagic Design Video Assist!

About nuSTUDIOS Film Productions
Since its inception in 2000, nuSTUDIOS Film Productions has served as a community for filmmaking enthusiasts in the National University of Singapore (NUS). The student film production house has produced over 22 short films, with their finest participating in both local and international film festivals such as the Singapore Short Film Festival and the Asian American International Film Festival. Several members have even continued to pursue their passion in filmmaking upon graduation. Some notable alumni include, but not limited to; Tan Bee Thiam, Kirsten Tan, Derrick Loo, and Melinda Tan.

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'Jimami Tofu' - A Love Affair Made in Okinawa

March 22, 2017, 8:09 am
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Earlier this month, we gave a shoutout for a newly-completed film called 'Jimami Tofu' by BananaMana Films, helmed by Jason Chan and Christian Lee. Fresh from the success of their Netflix hit called ‘Perfect Girl’, made for just $1000, this latest film endeavour of theirs takes a delicious turn. This is their first feature film and it is a marriage of food and love, that takes place in the seaside setting of Okinawa, Japan.


In the film, a Chinese Singaporean chef, formerly working in Tokyo, finds himself in Okinawa begging a disgruntled old chef to teach him traditional Okinawan food. A top Japanese food critic finds herself in Singapore on an eye opening discovery of SEA cuisine. In reality both are looking for each other after an emotional breakup years ago when she left him without a trace. Emotionally crippled by their breakup he searches her home-town for her but discovers instead the art of traditional Okinawan food. Through it he learns the incredible balance of two cultures: Chinese and Japanese - the homely, warmth of Chinese style cooking with the precision, delicacy and visual artistry of Japanese cuisine: a balance they never had in their relationship. When she suddenly appears in Okinawa looking to find closure he cooks and serves her their final meal. Through it she discovers what she had been yearning for all these years - the beauty of both cultures balanced to perfection and realises he has found the key to being together again. 

The film is led by an international cast including Jason Chan, Mari Yamamoto, Rino Nakasone, Masane Tsukayama, Christian Lee and many prominent Okinawan actors.
Jimami Tofu was shot with Sony’s A7sII and Sony is a proud sponsor of the film.





We trace the film's journey from field trip (to Okinawa) to finish, with the filmmaking duo Christian and Jason in an interview here.

 Where did the film idea come from? What was the inspiration?

Jason and I were invited to Okinawa on a scouting trip 1 year ago in Feb 2016, and the Okinawa Film Office was showing us all around the different locations to film at, as well as briefing us on their film grant schemes. Once we started to discover the rustic part of Okinawa, the history of the Ryukyu dynasty and then tasted a 10 course Ryukyu dynastic meal (at Akatafu restaurant in Naha), the story came to both Jason and I one night on the last day before we were to fly back home to Singapore. The true inspiration was tasting that authentic dynastic food. We loved the balance between, Chinese, Japanese and Ryukyu flavours, ingredients and the cooking techniques. 

What were the challenges you and your team faced? 

Language barrier was by far the most difficult challenge. A lot gets lost in translation, at times there were cultural differences that made producing the development stages challenging. We in fact got rejected the first time we applied for the grant. It's how we overcame that rejection, that we hope inspires others. We kept pushing forward. We independently made a 5 minute promo with a crew of 5, and then reapplied for the grant, but this time submitting the promo to show exactly the type of film we wanted to make (style, treatment and quality of acting and storytelling). We were so determined that we started to even make plans to still shoot our film, with or without the grant. 

How did BananaMana films get to collaborate with Okinawa Tourism board? 

How we were chosen to go on that scouting trip, was by constantly making dramas and films, and by going to all the TV and Film markets in our region. We actually had met the Okinawa Film office 2 years earlier, and introduced our content at the time to them. Each year they would come visit us at the Singapore Pavilion booth either at ATF or HKFilmart and every year we had a new title we were selling. The take home message here is: make films, if you want to be a filmmaker, don't just talk about wanting to make them. The moment you make something, anything (a short film, webseries etc), you will be one more step towards your goal. For us, something always positively happened, when we made something. We would have never guess that by making a webseries with 4 of us, for only $1,000 (Perfect Girl), we would then end up with 17 nominations and 7 international awards, which would then lead to getting a global distribution deal on Netflix. It happened because we went out and made Perfect Girl. One thing leads to another, so as long as we just kept making things, we'd keep building our film careers.

Can you describe the pre production process where Team BananaMana set off to Okinawa?

 It was a true test for Jason and myself. We went from a team of 4, who would normally do pre-production to just the 2 of us. It wasn't as overwhelming, because we knew the routine (break the script down, cast, lock locations, schedule, crew up), but it's a lot of work. We feel the advantage we have over others who might do the producing work for pre-pro, is we are also the writers, directors and editors. We can accurately estimate how much time we need to execute the filming of a particular scene. It's because we know what coverage and footage we need to get in order to edit our vision. When you constantly think of the edit, you streamline the whole planning process, and it's even more evident when we're directing. We only need certain angles that we know we're going to use. We know when we got the performance we are mostly likely going to use in the edit. Our advice, for any budding directors out there is to learn to edit. It will serve you as a writer as well. 


Can you tell me more in regards to the cast of the film?I found out from Jason that there's a Japanese dance choreographer and a Classic Okinawa Actor. 

 The actress who plays Nami, Rino Nakasone, is actually a famous K-Pop dance choreographer as well as well known dance performer. Jimami Tofu marks her debut lead role.

Here's more info on her: A local Okinawan, Rino rose to international fame as one of the top dance choreographers for S.M. Entertainment, creating choreography for Girls’ Generation, Shinee and BoA. She’s also tour the world as a dancer for Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani and Justin Bieber. With her love for performing, Rino is now embarking into acting, which is her new passion.

I think the Classic Okinawa Actor you might be referring to is Japanese A-list actor Masane Tsukayama. He's very famous in Japan, and Japanese people who notice that he's in our film are amazed that we secured him in our little independent film. We managed to get in touch with his manager, through our Okinawa producer. We had learned that he was originally born and raised until his teens in Okinawa, before he moved to Tokyo for his acting career. We sent him the script, which we had to get fully translated into Japanese, as well as get formatted into the traditional left right up down way. Once he read the story, and saw the potential of how this project could emotionally connect people to Okinawa, he signed on board.

It would be an amazing story, if it truly were just Jason and myself getting this film made, but that's not how filmmaking works. It's a huge collaborative effort. It only took us 2 to get the film off the ground, but then it starts to take a life of it's own, other very passionate people start contributing and growing it. Occasionally we had to guide it, but we quickly realised that if you cast and hire the right type of people to be a part of your vision, it all starts to magically come together. 




About BananaMana Films

Founded by Christian Lee and Jason Chan - BananaMana Films is a Singapore based company focussed on creating aspirational Asian dramas in English for global distribution. Their most prominent drama, Perfect Girl, won 7 awards and 17 nominations internationally and achieved global distribution this year when it was picked up by Netflix, VIKI and Korea’s NAVER TVcast. It became the second Singaporean film to be picked up by Netflix and the first non-domestic web-drama on NAVER TVcast. Most recently it was also acquired by D’live one of South Korea’s largest cable and IPTV networks.

Written by Jeremy Sing


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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'Paperboat' by Ong Kah Jing and Yong Yan Hee

March 31, 2017, 11:16 pm
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Paperboat is one of 32 short film entries for the Point and Shoot 55-hour filmmaking challenge organised by nuSTUDIOS Film Productions. Although it was not in the top 10 films by the jury's vote, it proved a hit with an online audience and clinched the Audience Choice Award with a stunning 2.1k Likes on Facebook. 

Kah Jing and Yan Hee have done a admirable job with this film, despite being novice filmmakers and having a 55-hour time constraint. It manages to draw on a well of emotions through a simple, beautifully told narrative. The titular paperboat is not singular, but actually a fleet of paperboats set to float free on a pond. Each sheet of paper has words written on it, houses a story within.




'Do you know the struggle of a paperboat?' the narrator asks. Paper doesn't float on water, and yet, given the right conditions, it does. The paperboat is really an analogy, tapping on the insecurity many of us share: that of being inadequate, especially when it comes to creative work.

It is like a love letter to all creatives and those who feel like they're not good enough: I see you, keep going.



We interviewed the team who produced Paperboat, Ong Kah Jing and Yong Yan Hee, to get their thoughts on the competition process and on winning the Audience Choice Award.

You only had 55 hours to shoot and produce this film based on the theme ‘Bloom’. How did you prepare for the Point and Shoot competition, whether mentally or otherwise? 

It was the first time that both of us worked together. So two weeks before the competition, we tried to get to know each other more by watching films that we recommended each other as well as ate meals together just to know each other’s life story. Those interactions helped us to sync up our thoughts and we ended up developing a certain style that we knew we wanted to achieve even before the theme was released. 

What is the inspiration for Paperboat? Does it draw on a personal struggle of being a creative? 

Paperboat is actually inspired by Jeff’s rowing (dragon boat) experience. He views his life as similar to a boat race, in which he has to keep going or he will be left behind. He views himself as a novice in the filmmaking industry and thus identifies with a paperboat, one that is vulnerable to the waters that surround it and yet still is able to keep afloat. 

Was the time limit the greatest challenge throughout production or were there other obstacles you faced? 

We felt that our greatest obstacle was our inexperience. This was the first time that we helm the production of a narrative short film and so there was much uncertainty throughout the entire process. The time limit definitely added pressure to that as well. 

The iris shot is mesmerising. How did you achieve that and whose eye opens and closes the film? 

As the narrative was about the awakening of one’s will, we felt that the iris shot is a perfect representation of it. The dilation of the iris was quite aligned to the theme of bloom and we wanted to make for an unforgettable shot for it. To capture this shot, we placed a 100mm Macro lens incredibly close to Kah Jing’s eye. An strong LED panel was placed beside his eye to illuminate the details. We captured his iris dilating as the light was turned from on to off and reversed the footage to achieve that shot. 

How do you feel about winning the Audience Choice Award? 

Prior to winning, we felt defeated as we didn’t achieve what we desired to in the main competition. The Audience Choice Award allowed us to showcase our work to many people, and we were incredibly heartened by the response, both in terms of the support given during the voting period as well as the comments received. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the over 2,000 people who voted for us and SINdie for featuring us in this article.

Watch Paperboat here:


At the same time, you can watch all 32 films, which were vying for the Point and Shoot Audience Choice Award here.


Written by Jacqueline Lee

For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'Disconnected' by Goh Ansen

March 31, 2017, 11:17 pm
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Disconnected is a film about the contradictions of the world wide web and how people interact within it. The internet on one hand connects us to one another in amazing ways, enabling instant conversations across continents, and allowing us to discover the world in new, nuanced, self-directed ways. It also gives people the opportunity to reach out to friends and strangers alike, but how tenuous is that link?


Joe, a young man, sits in his room in the dark. A bottle of hand cream on the table. A towel on his lap.


It's such a familiar set up. He's bored, horny and perhaps a little lonely. He turns to the internet for gratification. On the left side of the screen Joe scrolls through a Tumblr blog with pictures of smiling bikini-clad women. On the right side of his screen is The Strangers Network. Think Omegle or Chatroulette, where strangers are randomly connected to each other in a video call.


Joe has been using the network to convince girls to strip for him. He's certainly charming enough, in a cheesy, smarmy way. 

One night things go terribly wrong for Joe.

Because a large duration of the film is spent on the actual screen interface, Goh cleverly generates tension by controlling how much is seen and how much is hidden. At times, the bikini-clad women take up a bulk of the screen, even as the viewer strains to see what is happening on The Strangers Network.


The film also asks interesting questions about the mode of the internet and its function in connecting people, because it simultaneously encourages a disconnect between person and image. Take the women Joe ogles on Instagram and Tumblr. Are they merely objects of our gaze, or are they people? What would it take for the women on the network that Joe tries to charm into stripping for him to become more than their sex appeal? 


Disconnected is the internet story that should be told. The need for connection coupled with a need for validation comes through strongly through thoughtful dialogue, editing and the use of screen recording footage to tell the story. It's like Unfriended without the supernatural horror elements. The internet is merely a tool and the onus is still on us to truly connect with other human beings online.

Check out filmmaker Goh Ansen's blog on his current and past projects here.

Disconnected is a recent addition to Viddsee's Singapore Film Channel.
You can watch the film here:


Written by Jacqueline Lee

For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'Open Doors: Singapore' by Daniel Yam

March 31, 2017, 11:17 pm
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As part of a campaign kickstarted by the International Organization for Immigration (IOM) to promote understanding and better relationships between employers and domestic workers, three films are done to spread the message in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Open Doors: Singapore is a film to tell a story within the local context. The eight minute short follows the tale of Serene, a Singaporean employer hiring Lisa, a domestic worker from the Philippines. Confiscating her passport, work permit and not giving her a day off, Serene goes about being unreasonable and demanding. As time passes, Serene’s own daughter begins to mimic her behaviour to spark a shocking realisation.

The film is directed by Daniel Yam, and he was tasked to do this by Fran Borgia of Akanga film raise awareness on the mistreatment of maids. “I have read the treatment of the script (and) I believed in the message of the story. I thought this is a story that needed to be told. I like stories that end with a strong message about humanity,” Yam shared with SINdie.

What we found particularly impactful is that the perspective taken is of the employer and not the maid. This choice challenges the viewers to take a more active role in questioning themselves and whether the choices made in the film are right or wrong. Also, what would we actually do if we know someone doing this to their helper?

Yam gives an example: “Suppose a Singaporean goes on a job interview, and be told that - there will not be any off days. The job requires long hours from 6 am to 11 pm. He needs to be on standby at all times. I think the interviewee will consider this as a ridiculous demand. But in fact this is the working condition of our many local helpers”

Besides giving food for thought and to drive a conversation forward on the rights of domestic workers, what else can viewers take away from this film?

“All people are equal. When we treat others with respect and love, respect and love come back to us.”
Watch the film here (from Viddsee):

Written by Dawn Teo

For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here
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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'John Clang' by Kirsten Tan

March 31, 2017, 11:17 pm
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Kirsten Tan has often stood on the side of the loner, whether in her various award-winning short films or in her Sundance-celebrated feature film Pop Aye (also reviewedin this month’s STOP10). Consider her most recent fiction films, for instance, which take an introspective glimpse into the life of an elderly widow on Pulau Ubin, or a wheelchair-bound NYC eccentric, or a disillusioned Thai architect on a road trip. But Tan’s affinity for the reserved protagonist also carries into her documentary work, notably in her 2012 short film John Clang, which centres on the NYC-based Singaporean visual artist and photographer of the same name.



In many respects, John Clang fits naturally as a documentary subject into Kirsten Tan’s filmography, perhaps due to some clear similarities that they share:

1) They are both Singaporean art-makers who have wound their way to New York City, but who remain staunchly Singaporean. The theme of displacement threads itself through Kirsten Tan’s work across various registers, from as light-hearted as a man trapped in his boxers on his fire escape (Cold Noodles) to as serious as an ill-fated encounter with a Rohingyan refugee girl (Dahdi). In John Clang, this theme takes yet another shape, in the figure of Clang at work in a featureless NYC photography studio, surrounded by blank walls and green screens. As Clang tells it, New York exists for him mainly as a ‘cave’ in which he can focus on his work. “Hearing from my accent and knowing me, I’m very much living in Singapore mentally,” narrates Clang in his Singlish-inflected voiceover.



John Clang thus offers up a different narrative of the displaced Singaporean artist, in which leaving Singapore is not necessarily a sign of enmity towards the country, as much as it is an opportunity to find one’s voice. Clang’s voice speaks for itself, both in his accent and in his work, and Tan wisely lets him do it throughout the film. Likewise, Tan’s own journey brought her through South Korea, Thailand and the US, and yet here she maintains a similar fidelity to her hometown in her loving use of old footage of a former Singapore: drive-by shots of movie billboards over the former Capitol Theatre, or clips of humble HDB flats with their old metal shutters and bamboo poles.

2) They both work in visual media, and tap on a surrealist vein in their artwork. Clang’s projects echo the quiet and surrealist aesthetic of Tan’s filmography. Various images of hers float to mind: a solitary bathroom sink standing in the ocean in Sink; a camera’s quiet swoop down a muddy river flanked by greenery in Dahdi; or now, most famously, a man heading down a country road with an elephant companion in Pop Aye.



Of course, since John Clang is structured primarily as a retrospective of Clang’s artistic portfolio, Tan focuses primarily on offering a delightful sampler of his work. We get glimpses of Clang’s eye for a slightly alien beauty: a girl in a white nightslip drifting serenely over a sun-dappled redwood forest, or a mandrill in a lush zoo habitat surrounded by out-of-focus bubbles of NYC passersby. Other conceptual works get the elaboration they deserve: take, for instance, Clang’s poignant series of portraits of overseas Singaporeans taken with a projected backdrop of their families back home. Or his Twilight Dreams of Papilio Demoleus series, in which two cameras are triggered simultaneously to capture two angles on the same cityscape, with a lone butterfly superimposed on one of the two panels to inspire the viewer’s contemplation.



3) They both celebrate and enjoy solitude as a respite from the modern world. Against the grain of our social media-saturated age, John Clang offers a lovely portrait of an artist who feels no compunction to being extroverted. On the contrary, Clang claims that his introversion is crucial to his success as an artist, since it allows him to observe other people and capture details about them in his work. This manifests plainly in his photograph series Strangers, in which he digitally manipulates people on the streets of New York to place them in a room. “I’m actually quite a shy guy,” admits Chang with a laugh. “When they’re about to speak, I run away.”



Tan has also made no bones about her own brushes with solitude. In a Straits Times interview earlier this year, she shares about how loneliness “made me sensitive to everything. I became more observant. Snow falling felt more beautiful.” In John Clang, then, we witness a paean from one artist to another: kindred spirits, far from home but still at home, looking at the world askew, and finding a quiet beauty.

John Clang is available for viewing on Viddsee's Singapore Film channel.



Written by Colin Low

For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'Two Sides of the Bridge' (桥的两岸) by Chen Ge and Lim An

March 31, 2017, 11:18 pm
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Photo courtesy of Wong Han Min

Very little can be searched about this 1976 film on the internet. It was after all, a Singapore Chinese film made during a part of the century when Malay cinema ruled the big screens. It also featured an all-local cast, which made it difficult to beat popular Hollywood or Taiwanese films of the era. But Two Sides of the Bridge (桥的两岸) still remains as one of few prominent Chinese films made during the studio-era in our film history, alongside another Chinese film made in the 60s, Lion City (狮子城). In fact, Two Sides marked the tail end of studio-era films in Singapore.


Produced by two-journalists, Chen Ge (or Chen Chang Ming 陈昌明) and Lim An (林岸) under Chong Gay Theatres Ltd., this $200,000 film (pretty sizeable budget at that time!) tells the story of man who leaves Kelantan to come to Singapore in search of love and a brighter future. His love comes in the form of Lee Lin Fong, a factory girl, and he found himself a job as a civil servant. In the end, the lure of money got the better of him and led him down the dark alley into things on the other side of the law. A tragic migrant worker story.


Among disparate links with incomplete information about the film online, I did come across a review of the film written on 16 December 1976. Apart from praising the efforts of the filmmaker (though it said the premise was not original), something the anonymous writer said, turned out to be rather ironic.


从这部影片的拍制成功看来，我们认为发展本地电影事业的前途是光明的。综艺机构董事长林日顺先生曾经在电视座谈会上这样指出：“…在本地可以拍片，这一点是没疑问的。邻国，大多数都在发展电影事业，我国的条件不会比他们差，我们有好人才，如写剧本方面的，写出来也有相当水平。剧本方面是可以解决的。再加上我们‘电视台’培养好多演员出来，本地艺术团体方面也有不少人才。所以，我认为在新加坡拍片是没有问题的”。


“From the successful completion of this film, it is evident that the prospects for the Singapore film industry is bright. Mr Lim Jit Sun (Managing Director of Chong Gay) said,”There is no doubt filmmaking is possible in Singapore. The filmmaking industry is taking off in Malaysia and I don’t think we are worse off compared to our neighbours - we have talent, such as good scriptwriters, who are able to produce good stories. We also have many acting talents who have been honed from television. Our arts scene is also not short of talent. I don’t see why we can’t make our own films here.”


40 years on, one cannot help but look back at the comment with a smirk. Singapore’s coming-of-age in movie-making is still a work-in-progress, though it’s certainly come a long way. The National Museum of Singapore has kindly organised a re-screening of Two Sides this month to help mark this 40-year journey. Here are the details of the screening:

Date: 8 April (Saturday)
Time: 2 pm
Event: National Museum Cinematheque Selects
Venue: National Museum Gallery Theatre
The post-screening dialogue will be conducted in Mandarin.

Free tickets can be collected at the National Museum of Singapore (Visitor Services Counter, Level 1, open daily, 10 am to 6.30 pm) from today.

Tickets are also available online at https://tinyurl.com/CinSelectsApr

Tickets are available on a first-come first-served basis and limited to four tickets per person. Any remaining tickets will be given out at the door on the screening day.

Tracing the story behind this film was not going to be an easy at the onset, but with the help of the founder of SG Film Locations, researcher Toh Hun Ping, I managed to track down one of the co-directors, Chen Ge for a short jog of his memory. This brought me to Xinhua Cultural Enterprises, an old book store where he is part of a weekly gathering with his friends every Saturday. Conversations are held at a make-shift tea-corner at the side of the bookstore, where kids from the enrichment centre next door would sometimes stray to out of curiosity.
My encounter with Chen Ge opened up a new pandora box of knowledge about film development in Singapore. Not keeping strictly to the interview agenda, Chen Ge shared generously about the film industry dynamics in the 70s, offering a useful context to understanding the making of Two Sides.

I understand you were a journalist. What inspired you to make this movie?

Outside my work as a journalist, I also wrote many scripts in hope that they could be made into movies one day, even though I did not have the money.

我以前是记者和电影影评，写了几个剧本, 想拍戏, 但需要找几十万才可以拍。

At that time, Malay film productions dominated the industry, mostly produced under Shaw or Cathay-Keris. I have seen some of these productions in action. Most of the time, Indians took the director’s seat, Malays dominated the cast and the Chinese made the props and sets.

当时马来片的制作比较多， 大多数是邵氏和国泰的片。我有去看过片场,在Balestier. 导演都是印度人，演员都是马来人，道具木工都是华人。

There was a company called Chong Gay Theatres Ltd. It was the only local company that was able to muster significant resources for the making of films. Before Chong Gay, only Shaw and Cathay-Keris were able to produce films at a substantial scale.

综艺机构是第一家能够聚集浩大资源来制作本地片的公司. 之前只有邵氏和国泰Keris制片场也有资源制片.

Chong Gay was considered a left-leaning film production company. It establishment and growth happened very suddenly.

综艺算是左派的制片商. 它的成立是很突然的.

What is left-leaning?

什么是左派？

Left-leaning means it is more pro-China and pro-Communist party in its affiliations and beliefs. Left-wing films tended to be more wholesome and always had a positive moral message in the films. Right-wing films were more complicated and often involved killing and other dark elements.

左派就是思想上比较倾向中国的，倾共产党. 左派片内容比较健康， 就是叫人做好事的， 没有打打杀杀， 或比较不健康的东西.

The three big left-wing film production companies in the Chinese cinema industry were Great Wall Movie Enterprises Ltd, Feng Huang (Phoenix) Motion Picture Co and Sun Luen Film Company.

之前香港有三家算左派的电影公司-长城电影制片有限公司、凤凰影业公司和新联影业公司.

Shaw and Cathay, the two biggest film distribution and production companies in Singapore, imported many of their Chinese films from Taiwan. Taiwan’s ruling political party Kuomingtang was at odds with the Chinese Communist Party, so the Chinese films distributed by Shaw and Cathay were more right-leaning.

那邵氏和国泰， 大部分片的来源是台湾. 台湾的政府是国名党跟中国的政府是对抗的, 所以台湾片算是右派的.

Chong Gay started as a very small company without a small stable of films. I still remember they distributed a film about a dog that was extremely well-received.

以前综艺很小,没有太多戏放映. 我记得他曾经发行的一部有关一只狗的片,票房非常好.

Then one day, the Taiwanese film producers imposed a condition on Shaw and Cathay, forcing them to stop distributing the left-wing films from Hong Kong. If this condition was not followed, their rights to distribute Taiwanese films would be forfeited.

那个时候台湾对邵氏和国泰公司下命令， 不能代理这些香港左派电影. 假如代理就不给他们放台湾片.

Due to the large number of films produced in Hong Kong, being unable to distribute these films in Singapore led to a sudden gap in the supply of films. And the three left-wing film companies were left with no distributors in Singapore.

因为中国香港片数量很大， 突然间断掉， 片变成很少.

This was an opportunity for Chong Gay, which very soon, signed an agreement with these companies to be their distributor in Singapore.

所以变成三家左派公司的片没有商家代理， 让综艺这家小公司得到一个机会, 就签合同代理这些片.

After signing the distribution agreement, Chong Gay realised there was a shortage of cinemas in Singapore. So, they started engaging in the building of several new cinemas in Singapore. Some of the prominent cinemas built by Chong Gay, include Kallang Theatre (which used to screen movies), Golden Theatre and Diamond Theatre. In fact, Kallang Theatre and Golden Theatre surpassed the Shaw and Cathay cinemas to become the largest cinemas in Singapore in the 70s.

综艺本来是一家小小的公司后来因为有机会代理这些片， 为了放映， 一定要有戏院, 就开始扩大建了许多间戏院， 包括了Kallang 黄金和砖石戏院. 本来是邵氏和国泰的戏院比较大， 后来Kallang戏院和黄金戏院变最大.

In terms of local Chinese film productions, they were few and sparse. The more prominent ones were Lion City and Black Gold, both of which had strong financial backing.

本地制作的中文片比较少而且很散， 比较出名的是易水拍狮子城和黑金. 这两部片比较有资本.

The proliferation of cinemas reached a point where there were too many cinemas. Leaving them idle would erode the company’s profitability. Shaw and Cathay seldom had this challenge because they had access to many overseas films and they were already engaged in producing original film content within their own studios. Chong Gay decided to explore original local film productions to increase its collection of films.

建了戏院之后，综艺突然有很多规模大也很新的戏院都绝对不输给邵氏或国泰.  但设施那么多， 变成片不够了. 邵氏和国泰都有海外片可以发行. 在本地,制作马来片有钱赚， 所以有制作马来片的部门Keris. 邵氏也有. 综艺就没办法，开始拍一些本地片扩展他的片源. 没片戏院就会亏本.
I had already built a name for myself as a film reviewer and my other co-director, Lim An, was an established theatre director. We were both approached by Chong Gay to make this film. Together with two other Hong Kong directors, we were the initial group of directors who directed films under Chong Gay. The first two films made under Chong Gay belonged to the Hong Kong directors, while we made Chong Gay’s third film.

是综艺来找我们拍片的。 我当时是在报官当记者， 而外也有写影评. 林岸是导演， 导过许多话剧，名气比较大，那么加上我们在圈内都认识很多演员，要找人拍戏不难. 所以综艺就找到我们成立了制片部门. 在找我们之前，已经请了两位香港导演. 前两部戏先请他们拍. 第三部就是我们的戏.

Two Sides featured an all-local cast and crew except for the gaffers and make-up artists.

两岸用的都是本地人材. 导演， 作曲， 演员，都是纯本的. 唯一不是本地的是灯光和化妆.

How was the storyline created?

那故事是怎么想出来的?

Lim An himself moved from Kelantan to Singapore. So parts of the fílm’s story were inspired by his own experiences. Kelantan, being near the Thai border, was a hotbed of drug smuggling activities, and this is reflected in the story as the lead character succumbs to the lure of gambling and drugs.

林岸本身是从基兰丹过来新加坡的，所以故事的灵感就从这里来， 了解基兰丹贩毒的情况
加上新加坡年轻人开始受物质的引诱. 故事就这样来的.

What were the audience’s reaction when they first watched Two Sides?

当时观众对戏的反应如何？

Let’s not discuss whether the film was good or bad but look at the process and examine the merits of the film from a production point of view as well. The all-local effort case and crew, helped it sell the film very quickly and the fact that we were working in print media helped as well.

我们不谈片好不好， 但从制作方面它是一部完全利用本地人才， 演员， 故事拍的片. 以这样的条件， 宣传方面有优势， 而且我当报界的人也有帮助. 再加上大家也希望能够有本地电影， 所以两岸得到不少人的支持.

Were there plans to make other films after Two Sides?

桥的两岸过后有想要拍其他片吗？

Yes there were. In fact, the opening up of China after the death of Mao Tse Tung, brought more opportunities, and China herself was making more films. However, the founder of Chong Gay, Koh Tian Kit, passed away shortly, and this affected many of the plans.

有，毛泽东去世之后中国比较开放，综艺就开始发行更多中国片. 我们也有筹备拍更多片， 但综艺的创办人却突然去世了， 所以计划就毁了.

Was there someone to take over the business?

综艺没有接班人吗？

Yes, there was, it was the founder’s son. As the son was mostly not around in Hong Kong, and there were too many issues and businesses to deal with, he was very conservative in his expenditure. This stood in contrast with his father, who was willing to make investments , such buying the best lighting and cameras.

有，但老板的儿子大多数不在香港， 儿子接手后太多业务， 不太敢花太多钱. 老板跟他比起来反而比较敢花， 买了最好的相机和灯光.

How long did you take to complete the film?

你花了多少时间完成拍摄?

We were very efficient in our work. The process was very swift, just 26 days. In fact, we all helped to carry things like the props and lighting and everyone got on very well.

我们拍摄过程很快,效率很好， 总共只拍了26 天， 我们每个人都帮忙扛道具， 灯光， 大家一起来， 很融洽.

After Two Sides, there were three other films in the pipeline, which never achieved fruition. They were Ghost Worshipper, about a Taxi driver who tried sleeping at the cemetery in hope of dreaming up lucky lottery numbers; Upstairs, Downstairs, about life in a HDB flat; Three Female Students, about their life in a HDB block and their individual love stories.

In fact, Lim Ann wrote a story that takes place in two places, Singapore and Shanghai. In the 70s, many mainland Chinese were envious of our lives in Singapore and yearned to be here. Hence, the market potential of this film was significantly huge. I even wanted to cast TV actress Zeng Huifen, who played the lead in SBC drama serial Samsui Woman, in the film.

拍完了以后,我们有三部戏在等， 一部是求鬼的人， 关于一位taxi司机为了要梦到万字票号码， 就去睡坟墓， 希望做梦能梦到四个字. 第二部是楼上楼下 - 是说明组屋生活的故事. 第三部是三个女学生 - 也是组屋生活和她们的恋爱故事.

很可惜的是林岸也写了一部剧本， 是个跨中国和新加坡的故事， 两地之间的感情， 市场和观众范围很大， 而且当时很多上海人希望能搬过来新加坡住， 而且当时想找曽惠芬来演这部戏

Have you watched the recent Singapore films?

你有没有看比较近代的本地片？

I have watched Mee Pok Man and Ilo Ilo. I think Ilo Ilo was a good film as it was able to tell a complete story. I have also watched Jack Neo’s films and I must say Jack Neo has good ideas.

Mee Pok Man 我有看过.  爸妈不在家我也有看. 都不错， 能顺利的讲一个完整的故事. 梁智强呢就很有idea.

Do you know Jack Neo personally?

你认识梁导吗？

No, but we have brushed shoulders at an event before.

不认识， 插肩而过

I hear your whole cast will be coming down on 8 April. Is that true?

听说四月八号两岸的全班人马都会来.

Yes, that right. In fact, there is one cast member who used to bring her one-year old baby to the filming set. She will be coming and I am very curious to see how she is doing now.

有一位很好笑， 当时拍片的时候手里会抱着 baby， 现在已经四十多岁了,很想看她现在怎么样了.

Do drop by the National Museum on 8 April, Saturday, 2 pm to meet Chen Ge and his cast and crew.

Interview by Jeremy Sing

For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'Adiwiraku' by Eric Ong

March 31, 2017, 11:18 pm
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Coming in at a solid 2 hours, Adiwiraku is Eric Ong's heavyweight debut. Based on the real life story of two "Teach for Malaysia" teachers who teach English to their students in a kampung school, it follows their preparation to win the local district's English choral speaking competition, while dealing with the students' social and financial needs.

Image result for Adiwiraku
Cheryl Ann Fernando: real one on the left, reel one on the right

Translated as "My Superheroes", Adiwiraku focuses on Cheryl Ann Fernando and the 35 students she recruits as her "superheroes" for the choral competition. We follow her first day at school with its attendant teething issues to her last day as she bids a tearful adieu to pursue her further studies.

While it is admirable that Eric has attempted to portray historical fact as faithfully as possible, even casting some of the main students as themselves, it sometimes causes the film to waver as real life is never as neat as in the movies; which unfortunately rears up throughout this film.

For example, Cheryl's colleague, Constant Wong is rarely portrayed independently in this film, being at best a sounding board for Cheryl or at worst, comic relief.  A pity really, given that male teachers are in short supply and could benefit from being promoted. Still, as a enthusiastic young educator, he does bring in some positive energy to this film.

Such energy is needed given the various socio-economic struggles portrayed in this film. From mental-illness to poverty, quite a few issues are mentioned. I describe them as mentioned rather than discussed because although they are given airtime and quite poignant, the solutions and problems are never really quite thoroughly explored. Perhaps because the film attempted to be historically accurate and risk embarrassing the families portrayed, or maybe Eric in this case had gone for breadth rather than depth. Nonetheless some sustained imagination as to how teachers and schools overcome these obstacles would have made their efforts all the more laudable.

Coming back to the main plot and actress of the film though, Sangeeta Krishnasamy who plays Cheryl, never falters as the young teacher who believes in the potential of her students. With a heart as firm as Mother Theresa's, she dispenses advice and encouragement to her students, pushing on with naive optimism against the obstacles that they face. A feel-good story about kampung schools made good, this story adds to the global body of films about how education is able to change the lives of the poor and underprivileged.

Why should Singaporeans care about it? Simply because the issues portrayed in our neighbouring country are as real as it gets in Singapore. Not having had an update on our education system since the "I Not Stupid" series, which is more than 10 years old, it is a timely reminder of issues that underprivileged students still face in our schools. Furthermore, Eric is a Singaporean director, despite being based in Malaysia and has worked on numerous Suria TV programs.

Written by Jenson Chen


Distributed by DLUX Entertainment, yhe film started its run in late March and will continue to have some screenings in April. Check out these screening timings:

11 April 2017, Tues, 3pm
12 April 2017, Wed, 2.30pm
Carnival Cinemas, 100 Beach Road Shaw Towers

For those who don't know, Carnival Cinema is the largest cinema chain in India and they opened their first overseas cinema in Singapore in October 2016.

For more information, large bookings and availability, please contact DLUX Entertainment at info@dluxentertainment.sg.

Special promotion for educators, teachers and students! Come on down to Carnival Cinemas with a group of 5 and more and enjoy Adiwiraku at $7 only! Usual price $10.

Check out the film trailer here:


For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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STOP10 Apr 2017: 'Pop Aye' by Kirsten Tan

March 31, 2017, 11:19 pm
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Premiering as the opening night film at Sundance, Singapore’s first ever entry into the competition, Pop Aye is a humanistic, charming, off beat road movie full of odd encounters with eclectic characters. It finally comes home to Singaporea screens in Golden Village cinemas on the 13th of April.

With the interesting hook involving transporting an elephant from Bangkok to the countryside, the movie should not be a hard sell, especially when the titular character is one of its main stars and transcends quickly into a symbol of a past that plagues our protagonist, Thana. (Thaneth Warakulnukroh)

Thana is introduced to us in his darkest days, as a man who has lost his purpose in life, where everything he achieved is now being replaced. His younger boss is taking over his architectural projects as well as tearing down his main achievement, a shopping complex he had designed years ago. It is to be replaced by a larger and extremely phallic metallic building. To add salt into the wounds, the superstructure is named Eternity. At home too he feels replaced, finding his exasperated wife’s hidden vibrator and later pushes away his awkward and cringe worthy sexual advances.

Wandering through Bangkok, a place he had yearned for in his younger days, he spots an old elephant he believes to be Pop Aye, a childhood companion back in his youth on the family farm. His reconnection to this kindred spirit – an out-of-place and forsaken animal – changes his life as Thana decides to bring Pop Aye all the way back to his village in Loei, where he believes it belongs. Thus sparks one of the most endearing and affecting adventures directed by a Singaporean filmmaker.



We are then thrust full on into the journey of Pop Aye, which takes a riskier but definitely more engaging route with its non-linear editing. Tan has some fun with the formula of a traditional voyage, passing back and forth loosely in time and ends with a film that is circumambulatory and karmic in many respects. The films’ insistent theme of inescapable progression of time becomes much stronger for this choice. Furthermore, injected with some black humor and lined with a boisterous score by Matthew James Kelly and sound design by Ting Li Lim, the expedition feels vast, well paced and never a drag.

Personally however, the most interesting and unique moments, come from the simplest scenes loaded with unexpected spells of surrealism that lifts the film with added vitality and depth. They are forceful and leave a lasting impression.

None of this really particularly matters if we were not invested in the characters of course, but Thana is instantly easy to sympathize with from the very beginning. His despair is practically palpable and on his protracted journey, he brings a sense of vulnerability as he repeatedly jumps out from the frying pan and into the fire.

As much trouble he gets himself mixed up in however, the film rarely turns into something overtly comical nor grim and is outstandingly good natured and warm. While he runs into the panoply of interesting characters that he meets, Thana in a saint-like manner, manages to leave something positive unto each and everyone of them in their own special way.  So often, a failing of such road movies is when the protagonists feel too inactive, allowing events on their journey to simply happen to them, yet Thana equally reciprocates to the strangers he meets.

They unsurprisingly are much like Thana himself - an outsider and misfit like most of Tan’s characters. They too are largely past their prime and replaced in some way. Dee (Chaiwat Khumdee), a haggard hippie living in a disused gas station, ready and waiting to die to be reunited with his brother in heaven is an early stranger he meets who becomes deeply changed and returns later in the film. Another character is Jenni (Yukontorn Sukkijja) an ageing transgender singer, working at a ramshackle roadside bar, who helps him on his way whilst also bringing some playful sexual tension.

There is also not a real antagonist here and no true opposing set of characters. Thana’s wife, Bo (Penpak Sirikul) is disapproving of his actions, but most of us could not possibly blame a woman for freaking out when she finds that her husband had bought an elephant off the street and into their home. Nor are the two police officers that he runs into bad people. They dealt more in low-grade unpleasantness than actual villainy.

Much of this comes from the complexities given to each character than a failure of the screenwriting, shifting focus much more on Thana’s internal struggle. The scenes allow things to unfold, sometimes languidly and in unexpected ways but with a human focus. Tan here proves her strength as an expert chronicler of quiet human dissatisfaction and frustration. There are no melodramatic performances and even after surmounting their various obstacles to reach their final destination, there is no simple and conventional resolution that one would expect, like the realisation that the modest life in the countryside had always been better than the metropolis they had attempted escaping.

Instead the inevitable and relentless march of modern development still touches Thana’s old home and everything becomes replaceable with little remorse or sentiment. It is not a cathartic and simple answer but proves a cautionary message, as Thana soon realizes coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

The film has and leaves the viewer with warmth and in spite of the titular elephant in the room, a genuine love for people. There is a great captivation to be found in the lives of these characters, even with the most minor of them. Overall Pop Aye is generously insightful and serves to shed some light on inexorableness of time upon society and existence.

Check out the trailer for Pop Aye here: 

  
Pop Aye opens on 13 April in Golden Village cinemas.



Written by Rifyal Giffari

For the full list of April 2017's 10 films under STOP10, click here.
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