Singapore Short Film Awards - Brazil by Philothea Liau

"Doesn't the synopsis for Brazil give away the whole story?" asked a friend. Yes, it does, but that's not the point to the 5-min short. See, Brazil opens with a close-up on a boy's face as his tears well up and begin to fall, but the film doesn't use this arresting image to throw us into the thick of its plot. Rather, it cuts away to a huddle of schoolboys plowing their hands through a box of erasers at a stationery shop, leaving us wondering whether we've been flashed foward or back in the storyline, and wondering how this relates to whatever incident it was that could bring a boy to tears.

The erasers being fought over are the familiar rectangular ones with country flag designs; I felt a pang of nostalgia upon seeing them, recalling the flipping games my classmates used them to play back in primary school. The best moments of Brazil stick to this register, relying on our memories of what it felt to think like a schoolkid. Indeed, the boys aren't digging for just any eraser but for one design in particular, the one that gives the film its title. When one boy has found the prize, the rest stop searching and watch glumly as he pays for it and leaves. The film choreographs that the Brazil eraser is most valued, but it doesn't matter why; the point here is that our emotional investments as kids are quite overblown. The film's final shot loops back to its first, so that we discover the cosmic joke being played on the boy's feelings, and on our expectations for what that involves.

Since the time I last saw Brazil, I have become far more convinced that its basic strength lies in the intrigue and humour of these shots that bookend the film: a testament more to the writing than to actor Damus Lim, nominated for his expert crying performance at the S'pore Short Film Awards. The scenes in the film's middle don't demand much from Damus, though he acquits himself far better than his stilted schoolmates. This ungenerous label applies more to the throng of prospective buyers after his Brazil eraser, and less to the two chubby bullies that block his path. A single take alternates between the bullies' faces as they shout unmenacing threats in their kiddy voices ("You blind ah!"), and helps rather than harms this enjoyable lark of a schoolkid's world writ large.


This review was originally written in Dec '09; it has been edited and expanded for the Singapore Short Film Awards in Jan '10.

Singapore Short Film Awards - Swimming Lesson by Kat Goh

How often do we find local films shot as confidently as Swimming Lesson? The whole film is composed almost entirely out of breathless long takes—one take per scene—thus trapping us in the drama of a family sending a girl off to study overseas. We kick off at home, where grandpa watches a televised swimming match. Behind him, in a flurry of well-blocked activity, a mother fusses to her daughter over the travel adaptors she needs to pack, and to her husband over the time they must leave the house, while the targets of her fussing themselves shuffle around the living room with muffled exasperation. In this take alone, we get to know what everyone feels about the trip at hand (in descending order of worry: mother, father, daughter, grandpa). We can predict, then, that the mother's nagging will persist through the following scenes, pushing tensions to a threshold. We even bump into clichés like "we're wasting time" blame-shifting, and painstakingly prepared bottles of bird's nest soup.

For me, Swimming Lesson handily defeats these obstacles by offering a few striking moments of respite. First, the film scatters bouts of humour within its scenes. Script-wise: Mum explains how to sneak liquids aboard the plane, and dad gets in a punchline on her deftness. Direction-wise: Dad gets into a slapstick scenario in the background of a sustained shot at a coffeeshop (he needs to manoeuvre around a queue), while the rest of the family holds a separate conversation in the foreground. It even comes down to details like Mum re-ordering one less coffee because "girl needs to sleep on the plane"—until we note how the drinks are finally distributed.

Second, Kee Chiew Hiang's shrill characterisation of Mum turns out to be vital to a late-breaking decision by the character. The film even doles the mother a generous close-up as we watch her anxieties preying on her, playing out on her face, and she utters a line in dialect that made the audience gasp with disbelief, not because we didn't believe the character would say such a thing, but because we'd bought wholly into her motivations for such a choice.

Finally, the film takes its time to unfold why it chose its title. For a long time, we wonder if Grandpa's swimming match, lasting through home and car and coffeeshop, is the film's only tenuous link to a "swimming lesson", until it intersperses brief shots of an unidentified girl floating serenely in a swimming pool. The relationship between these meditative shots and the storyline remains a mystery, until a frightful action by Grandpa, a cutaway to the floating girl, and our memory of subtle hints sprinkled earlier in the story tie it all together. I still catch my breath when I think about that finale, and wonder how the filmmakers captured these authentic long-take driving scenes on the roads by the Esplanade. A masterclass.

Singapore Short Film Awards - Did you see what I see? by Soon Zhan Hui

Apparently, the spirit of the Mandarin voiceover on emo music is hard to exorcise. Royston Tan has a lot of cleaning up to do. To give this film credit, the narration is on English. But the narrator (no better way to put this linguistically) really cannot make it one lor. To be fair, like my own first films too. 

In 'Did you see what I see?', we amble through a black and white montage of bleak scenes of life. In the director's own words, the montage reflects reality, one that is not meant to be beautified by shooting in colour. One that has to remain as sombre as the real life. My heart sank as I followed the train of thought, which echoed some real personal pain. But soon, my brain sank too and got left behind somewhere in the black and white streets.

p.s. I am not sure if the filmmaker saw some light at the end of the tunnel because the last scene came into full colour.

Singapore Short Film Awards - Death Chess by Ng Guo Rong

Yet another tale about revenge, with a suggestion of violence. The coupling of that with it being a  'first film' usually offers a jarring visual experience for the audience. I may be wrong in saying that it is a first film but its whole 'fan-boy' feel about it from its visual cliches to the 'seen-it-somewhere-before' title (Sounds like 'Death Note') seems to suggest it. It centres around a 'life-and-death' chess game between a tormentor and his captive. The is a act of revenge by the tormentor for losing out to his victim years ago in school. Most of the mise-en-scene is a yawn, all attention is focussed on the electric drill that is driven closer and closer to the victim as the game progresses. But that is all before we turned our eyes to the tormentor. It a while to confirm an initial suspicion that the tormentor is really quite a camp queen - the exaggerated chin lifts and the poses, nevermind the fact that he had been mentally debilitated by past events. So distracting was his theatrics that it was easy to lose the storyline.

Perhaps its website will speak more fairly for the film. Check out Death Chess at www.deathchess.webs.com 

Singapore Short Film Awards - The Tibetan Mastiffs by Danny Lim

Easily one of the most forgettable films of the night but the most polished. Comparing his 'My Underwear, My World' to this, this is a big leap in terms of style and professionalism. The seamless documentary would fit in nicely into a Channel News Asia slot except that it had a bit more narrative wit than many of the news channel's programmes. The aesthetics and choice of shots also mirror a lot of the documentary films that came out of Oak 3 Films like 'Veil of Dreams' and 'Brother No.2'. Both seem to come from the same cookie-cutter. The only difference is it had a more refreshing narrator voice.

I must add that it was a gratifying experience watching 'The Tibetan Mastiffs' despite the predictability of it. Abundant in its images of our endearing furry friends, the satisfaction is akin to being fed a dose of National Geographic. And for the dog-lovers, dog porn perhaps. These dogs are so robust and stout yet helplessly loveable that you even feel like touching them. But don't risk your hand, the owner's already said they are only used to 'zi ji ren' (their own people).  A point of pondering there for me about dogs' ability to bond with humans and live side by side.

This brings me to the way the subject of the people of Tibet was introduced. To paraphrase, the Tibetan Mastiffs are strong and resilient to challenges and obstacles, like the people of Tibet. Certainly, the opening up of this narrative window was very clever. But it stopped right at the surface, giving the audience only a partial scent of Tibet's tumultuous historical experience, missing out on the chance to give the film a few more inches of depth. But of course, it's about our furry friends, which my work-beaten eyes could not complain about.

Singapore Short Film Awards - The Rescuer Hero by Christopher Broe

Ang Moh love story by the HDB long kang (drain) with furry Ang Kong (toy)

A simple flavourful sentence like this can be used to sum up Christopher Broe's short Rescuer Hero. I don't quite get its point but its got its innocent sweet charms. A young man, contorts himself, risking dislocation to retrieve his monkey soft toy... but only to torment it in various ways again, and to rescue it again after that. So you know the cycle. This catches the attention of the blonde girl who appears at the playground. No prizes for guessing that she secretly digs the his lamely heroic ways. 

Sitting through a number of films from the TISCH students often puts me in a ambiguous state between appreciating the American pizzazz in storytelling and production and squirming at the sense of incongruity in character, situation and space. Think savvy robbers in HDB heartland (I made that up). But it is easy to forgive given their circumsta

nces. I think Wong Kar Wai made an absolute mess out of 'Blueberry Nights' but we know 'where he was coming from'. 

All in all, 'Rescuer's Hero' was weak in its point but sweet in its aftertaste, mostly from the man's silliness. 

Singapore Short Film Awards - It's Magic by Shilpa Krishnan Shukla

I wonder what's the point of making a film when it illustrates a situation that has been played out to tedium and clicheness in TV soaps. Unless of course, the director has been quite starved of TV fare. In 'It's Magic', a man, a tad remorseful for his affairs, returns to his former love. But she is not appeased with just a make-up gesture. She needs vengeance for the hurt and lures him into a lethal trap. The generous peppering of her lines with cliches like 'now you see it now you don't', reinforces the feeling that you have watched this to the accompaniement of countless bedtime snacks. So my guess is the point of making this film could be simply a directorial exercise. Or is it a 'Girl Power' message? This is where Shipla's casting of the Indian lady here makes a strong point. With her hair rebonded, dressed in a chic modern outfit and hands gracefully balancing 2 glasses of wine, she cuts a figure seldom represented in local movies - the modern suave Indian woman. The closest to that was last seen in 1979 in Saint Jack (especially when Monica Subramaniam untwirled her sari...).

Singapore Short Film Awards - Man in Snow Globe by Koo Chia Meng

This is must be the last part of a Kelvin’s physical trilogy. The first being ‘Tanjong Rhu’ by Boo Junfeng, the second being ‘Anniversary’ by Royston Tan and finally ‘Man in Snow Globe’ by Koo Chia Meng. Kelvin is the actor playing the lead here and he seems to have reached some kind of ‘muse’ status. This time, it more physiological than physical – he is blind and slowly regaining his sight at the expense of losing parts of his memory (with the help of a kind of technology). It opened with a montage reminiscent of Julian Schnabel’s ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, flashing gauzy intimate images of people and scenes. Then, we are at pore-distance to the lead’s face, subjugating us into a journey of the man’s coming to terms with his loss.

The situation is grave. However, the actor looks a little too young and athletic to evoke a feeling of diminution. This is a pity because the Chia Meng has cleverly manipulated some visual tools to obliquely convey the pain of blindness. These included the girl (Julie) with her faced partially eclipsed with a birthmark as well as the sprinkling of powder over his body to elicit his sensitivity to touch since his ‘vision’ is failing him. In fact, the powdering scene was a signature moment that made the film and a thoughtful payout to the title. A tantric kind of feeling in both an emotional and sensual way (yes, it’s about his body again!). Aided by camera work that has a freehand sort of expressiveness and sure-footed editing, ‘Man in Snow Globe’ is a like pretty poetry. I only hoped it had more bite.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Eric Khoo

Name of Project: Untitled animation based on Yoshihiro Tatsumi's 'A Drifting Life'

Brief Description of Project: Yoshihiro Tatsumi, a 74-year-old graphic artist, is regarded as the father of gekiga, a term he coined for the darker and more realistic form of manga he created in the late 1950s. For Eric who was writing and drawing comics in his early 20s, Tatsumi was a huge influence. “The more I think back, everything from ‘Mee Pok Man’ to ‘12 Storeys’ has been influenced by him,” (Eric).

The black and white feature animation is based on Tatsumi's autobiographical “A Drifting Life” and will be in Japanese. It will be a co-production between Khoo's Zhao Wei Films and local media production firm Infinite Frameworks. Multimedia artist Brian Gothong Tan will be the lead animator on the project.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Brian Gothong Tan

Name of Project: Music Video for Singapore Pavilion at World Expo 2010

Brief Description of Project:

Brian is currently shooting a music video featuring a who's who list of Singapore singers like Stephanie Sun and Tanya Chua. This video will screen at the Singapore pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The screening form is unusual because of the 180 degree projection of the final video. Further down the year, Brian will also be working on some commissioned works for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.

Video depicting the Singapore Pavilion

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Ellery Ngiam

Name of Project: Forgotten Tears

Brief Description of Project: A family drama of how the living come to grips with life. As a professional mourner, Helen Ying cries at other people's wakes. But she cannot bring herself to mourn her eldest daughter's death. When remaining daughter Emma discovers a link to her deceased sibling, Helen controlled world is shaken. She must confront her deep-rooted grief or risk losing all she has.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Ho Tzu Nyen

Name of Project: Endless Day

Brief Description of Project: 

Endless Day is an action film inspired by a film entitled A Touch of Zen (1969) made by Hong Kong director King Hu. The treatment of action is such that you can feel the physicality involved with the fight scenes, when you see the protagonist actually panting. 'Until today I still think it's one of the greatest martial arts films ever made.'  Endless Day is a mix between Robinson Crusoe, The Blue Lagoon and A Touch of Zen. It'll be filmed entirely in Singapore.

Project Tagline: In an undeterminable time and place, a boy and a girl try to build themselves a house, in the heart of a tropical paradise. Soon the outside world collapses on them, for fate is on their backs, like a madman with a razorblade...

Who's Shooting What in 2010? James Leong & Lynn Lee

Name of Project:The Great North Korean Picture Show (documentary film)
Brief Description of Project: North Korea is to many, a place of mystery. A hermit state. Secretive. Impenetrable. Now, this groundbreaking film opens a window into a world like no other – follow two young film students and a leading director as they show us their country’s version of Hollywood. An industry helmed, personally by the man everyone calls the Dear Leader – Kim Jong-Il. An industry that exists not for profit, but as a tool of the state.
Project Tagline:An unprecedented journey inside Kim Jong-Il's movie world.

SMU Film Fest 2010

Click to view enlarge image of schedule

SMU Film Festival is organised as part of the SMU Arts Festival. The festival will feature a documentary competition category, an international feature film showcase as well as a short film showcase.

The festival is opened to both the SMU community and the public.

Click here to find out more or join them on their facebook group

Singapore Short Film Awards

The Singapore Short Film Awards will re-cap all that’s happened in the Singapore short film scene in 2009! It’ll be a screening for posterity’s sake, nostalgia or just for the hectic of experiencing a slice of yesteryear on film. There will be screenings, awards, winners and prizes!

Links:

Check out the official website here for screening SCHEDULE,JURY & NOMINEES.

Or share this with your friends through the Facebook Event

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Lei Yuan Bin

Name of Project: Redhill Close

Brief Description of Project: 

Redhill Close is a feature film project. Its story is centred around, Vel, an actress who is moving house out of Redhill Close, an old residential estate in Singapore. Not to give away too much about the story, the film is about Redhill, an old residential estate in Singapore. It contains some of the oldest public housing estates. This film is about its eventual disappearance – the people, the place and the shared memories.  It is also about the Malay folk tale of Redhill.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Lee Wong

Name of Project: Garlic Cream Puff

Description of Project: 

Ken is just an ordinary young man trying to deal with life. His father has a secret while his mother thinks winning the lottery will make everything okay.

One day, Ken’s colleague-friend Jackson lets him in on a job too good to be true. Enticed by easy money and partly on a dare, Ken agrees to meet Robert, a stranger from the internet. Things are not what they seem... The truth hits closer to home than Ken expected.

He does something that surprises not just Robert, but himself as well.

Project Tagline: A son and father from very different places happen to meet up for very different reasons. What could go right?

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Sanif Olek

Name of Project: Ameen (final film in LOVE trilogy)

Brief synopsis: Johan, a boy who is a familiar character in the mosque (he appears in Lost Sole - the first film in LOVE trilogy) is infatuated with Sharifah and Yati, 2 Madrasah girls who passes the mosque regularly. His queries on how to win the girls' attention led to astonishing results. Would would he do for love?


Brief background: Ameen completes the LOVE trilogy about love and it's implications. Ameen explores spiritual love, faith and dissects conventional perception we have of one another, within and out, in our respective communities. A film for ALL religious (literal/figurative) clubs :)

Youtube:

Premiere: TBC

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Jeremy Sing

Name of Project: Ah John (temporary title) 

Brief Description of Project: 'Ah John' is a feature film script Jeremy has been working on and he hopes to complete it this year and start pre-production. 3 characters drive the plot. There is the mother who wonders why God never answers her prayers and considers changing her religion. There is the son who experiments a different side of himself at the expense of an innocent third party. Finally, there is the charismatic Church group leader who, disillusioned by circumstances falters on her principles.

Project Tagline: Could potentially change the way you look at religion.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Liao Jie Kai

Name of Project: Red Dragonflies(紅蜻蜓)

Brief Description of Project: Along an abandoned railroad running through dense forest vegetation, housing backyards, and unseen settlements, three youths retrace a trail of iron and wood. At a different part of the island, a man rekindles an old friendship with a woman – a meeting littered with incongruence, absences and traces of childhood dreams. The film is a meditation on states of “looking back”, and “moving on”; the change of times reflected in places, people and memories of a contemporary Singapore.Website: http://13littlepictures.wordpress.com/upcoming-projects/red-dragonflies/

Home

Selamat Datang Di Blog Pribadi. Semua Informasi Tentang saya akan dikupas lebih detail.Terima kasih.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Leonard Lai

Name of Project : 維護愛 (Protect, My Love) - Feature Film

Brief Description of Project: They met, fell in love, got married, had children, and hand-in-hand they grew old together. This is the love story of our parents. Told in reverse order from the present to the 1960s, it is a tale that is repeated in numerous families, in numerous lives; a tale that will never grow old. 維護愛 (Protect, My Love) follows Ma and Pa as they lives their lives and stay in love through the years - through ups and downs, riches and poor. It is a story of our parents, and also about the times that they have lived in.

Status: In process of raising financing for the film. All interested queries are welcome! :)

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Benjamin Tan

Name of Project: The Girl with the Red Balloons
Brief Description of Project:
The quirky surrealist experimental with a working title of 'The Girl with the Red Balloons' is a tale of reconciliation between mother and daughter. A woman lost in the daily routines of modernity and urbanity is blinded to her daughter's childhood as she presses her to adopt the ways and perceptions of an adult. The mother has grown calloused and desensitized over the years of toiling in the working world that she no longer sees what her daughter does. She is oblivious to her daughter's needs as a child and as a result, they exist on very different planes as they take on opposing perceptions of the world around them.

Who's Shooting What in 2010? Eva Tang

Name of Project:

《天堂情书》第2集《爱是永不止息》

Letters To Heaven Ep2 "Love never ends"

Brief Description of Project:

This is Eva's first attempt directing a TV docu-drama as a hired director. "Letters to Heaven" is based on real letters written in memory of the deceased. Each episode is helmed by different director. Eva wrote & directed episode 2 - "Love never ends" about a father missing his daughter. This completed project will screen on January 9th 9.30pm Channel 8.

Letters To Heaven Ep2 Trailer 天堂情书第2集《爱是永不止息》预告片 from eva tang on Vimeo.

However, Eva has also 2 other projects planned. One is a short film and she is also working on some videos for the Singapore Pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai this year.

Production Talk - Certain Chapters' by Abbas Akbar

Inspired by a series of true events the short film 'Certain Chapters' unveils the truth as it is, recreating the unforgiving and wanton world of gangsters in Singapore. The story revolves Jegan (Abbas Akbar), who suffers from an identity crisis, unconsciously wanting an image in the eyes of others. He acts upon the words of his mentor and gang leader ‘Hougang’ Veera (Elias Mikhail) who imports radical ideologies into him. Jegan’s ways lead him to destruction when he causes an innocent man’s death and bashes up a young school boy. 'Certain Chapters' aims to re-create the wanton world of Indian gangsters in Singapore and show the truth as it is.Director’s Bio:
Abbas Akbar started out as camera crew for local Tamil – language TV productions soon after completing his National Service. Abbas learnt and honed most his skills “on the sets” or as he puts it “School of Hard Knocks”. Abbas remains busy with directing a mix genre of programmes (current affairs, variety, commercials, etc.) for mainstream media. Certain Chapters marks his first attempt at casting and directing himself in front of the camera.Jeremy (J): Why are you so fascinated with gangsters and triads?
Abbas (A): I would say more than fascination the theme was an inspiration...‘Boys’ / Masculine theme. The general view of Indian gangsters has always been vague. I wanted to present their the real Indian gangster scene as ‘ raw’ as it is. With the language and all.J: It is mentioned this is based on a real life story, can you elaborate a bit more on the story?
A: It is a combination of multiple real-life incidents that I have come across.
The story of Jegan and the young boy at the end are common stories of how boys land up on the wrong path. The 'mad man' character was based on a character I have come across in a kopitiam in my neighbourhood, 'Hougang'.

J: I hear more about Chinese triads in Singapore. So could you enlighten us on the Indian gangster scene (haha)?
A: I think in Singapore they very much operate the same way as the Chinese Triads. Look at number one too. haha.

J: Why does the film have to be ADR-ed or rather dubbed? Weren they already speaking in Tamil?
A: The quality is just better, all professional films use ADR. Let's a short film have better quality.

J: How did you deal with cast that is supposedly 90% first-timers?
A: Just made sure we did lots of rehersals b4 the takes. Some of them were in gangs b4 so they were merely reacting. I also, took them thro' Method Acting. And most of them were passionate about the cause and to deter youths the path of gangsterism or that certainly helped.
J: What were some of the biggest challenges in making this film?
A: I would say funds , screening venues and marketing of the film. We have some very good filmmakers here. I believe the number 1 issue is always finding the funds. I have been lucky to have found a good Executive Producer in Raj Maiden who was also very ‘hands offs’ and let me make most of the creative decisions. Since the film was rated R21 many venues could not screen it. It was fortunate that the film got a few screening as part of Sinema Old School's Sinema Showoff, Experimental Cuts II Programme.
(pause)As filmmakers we often lack the marketing expertise. So after being shown in Sinema we just left the film as it is for month before a team from Singapore Polytechnic working with film festivals came forward to help us put the film on the circuit. Since then, Media Development Authority (MDA) has also funded the film for participation in selected festivals and programmes through its INSPIRE programme.

J: While we don't hear of many Tamil independent films around, are there more coming that we can expect to see? Do you have a community like the Singapore Malay Filmmakers Society?
A: To my knowledge I know TT Dhavamani Feature, 24 hours of anger is coming up.

Trivia on 'Certain Chapters':
• 90% of cast were first-time actors.
• First local Tamil-language (R21) production. Rating due to explicit use of coarse language.
• First local Tamil - language film to have been dubbed in Singapore.

Relevant Links:

Certain Chapters on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/CertainChapters

Certain Chapters on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/user/CertainChapters

Director Abbas Akbar’s Portfolio for Viewing on Behance Network:
http://www.behance.net/abbasakbar