Key practitioners working across Southeast Asia and beyond unpacked the various processes and benefits that go into the creation of short films at the Singapore International Film Festival, part of the overarching Singapore Media Festival.
Filmmaker Kan Lume, whose 2012 short “Libertas” won the Netpac Award at the Tripoli Film Festival, described the process of how he was commissioned and executed projects from the German Embassy in Singapore, Asian Film Archive and National Gallery Singapore.
Sangchul Lee is the chief operating officer of C47 Investment, a primarily Korean outfit that is now also operating in Southeast Asia, having just launched a short film distribution grant for filmmakers in the region in partnership with Singapore’s Momo Film. C47 also commissions shorts.
“When there’s a talented filmmaker that we really want to work with and build a relationship maybe as an investment to that person and that person’s potential future project,...
Filmmaker Kan Lume, whose 2012 short “Libertas” won the Netpac Award at the Tripoli Film Festival, described the process of how he was commissioned and executed projects from the German Embassy in Singapore, Asian Film Archive and National Gallery Singapore.
Sangchul Lee is the chief operating officer of C47 Investment, a primarily Korean outfit that is now also operating in Southeast Asia, having just launched a short film distribution grant for filmmakers in the region in partnership with Singapore’s Momo Film. C47 also commissions shorts.
“When there’s a talented filmmaker that we really want to work with and build a relationship maybe as an investment to that person and that person’s potential future project,...
- 12/6/2020
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Upcoming 27th edition to open with Asian premiere of Dain Iskandar Said’s Interchange on November 23.
The 27th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has unveiled its full line-up, comprising 161 titles from 52 countries across 13 sections.
The selection includes 16 world premieres, nine international premieres and 18 Asian premieres.
Among them are new features by masters such as Garin Nugroho, Lav Diaz, Tran Anh Hung, Naomi Kawase, Fruit Chan, Anurag Kashyap, Reha Erdem, Trinh Minh-ha, Kirill Serebrennikov, Kelly Reichardt and Ken Loach, many of whose earlier works were previously screened at the festival, according to programme director Zhang Wenjie.
In addition to the masters, Wenjie adds that a number of new filmmakers from Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Mongolia, Japan, Nepal, Turkey, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, France, Latin America, Taiwan, Singapore and the Us are featured across various sections.
10 Asian films are vying for the Silver Screen Awards, including the world premieres of Abdulla Mohammed Saad’s Live From Dhaka and Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo...
The 27th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has unveiled its full line-up, comprising 161 titles from 52 countries across 13 sections.
The selection includes 16 world premieres, nine international premieres and 18 Asian premieres.
Among them are new features by masters such as Garin Nugroho, Lav Diaz, Tran Anh Hung, Naomi Kawase, Fruit Chan, Anurag Kashyap, Reha Erdem, Trinh Minh-ha, Kirill Serebrennikov, Kelly Reichardt and Ken Loach, many of whose earlier works were previously screened at the festival, according to programme director Zhang Wenjie.
In addition to the masters, Wenjie adds that a number of new filmmakers from Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Mongolia, Japan, Nepal, Turkey, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, France, Latin America, Taiwan, Singapore and the Us are featured across various sections.
10 Asian films are vying for the Silver Screen Awards, including the world premieres of Abdulla Mohammed Saad’s Live From Dhaka and Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo...
- 10/27/2016
- ScreenDaily
Mda-backed Sgiff (Dec 4-14) is part of Singapore Media Festival.
The 25th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has announced its line-up with 147 films from 50 countries. After a hiatus of two years, the Sgiff will open as part of the Singapore Media Festival, which also comprises the Asia TV Forum & Market (Atf), ScreenSingapore (SS) and Asian Television Awards (Ata).
Hosted by the Media Development Authority (Mda), the Singapore Media Festival (and Sgiff) will run Dec 4-14.
Sgiff will open with Ken Kwek’s Singaporean thriller Unlucky Plaza, which premiered in Toronto last month. Making a feature directorial debut with the film, Kwek previously was screenwriter on films such as Glen Goei’s The Blue Mansion and Kelvin Tong’s It’s A Great, Great World.
The festival will close with Lucky Kuswandi’s Indonesian film In The Absence Of The Sun. A film the follows three women in the megacity of Jakara, it is Kuswandi...
The 25th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has announced its line-up with 147 films from 50 countries. After a hiatus of two years, the Sgiff will open as part of the Singapore Media Festival, which also comprises the Asia TV Forum & Market (Atf), ScreenSingapore (SS) and Asian Television Awards (Ata).
Hosted by the Media Development Authority (Mda), the Singapore Media Festival (and Sgiff) will run Dec 4-14.
Sgiff will open with Ken Kwek’s Singaporean thriller Unlucky Plaza, which premiered in Toronto last month. Making a feature directorial debut with the film, Kwek previously was screenwriter on films such as Glen Goei’s The Blue Mansion and Kelvin Tong’s It’s A Great, Great World.
The festival will close with Lucky Kuswandi’s Indonesian film In The Absence Of The Sun. A film the follows three women in the megacity of Jakara, it is Kuswandi...
- 10/28/2014
- by hjnoh2007@gmail.com (Jean Noh)
- ScreenDaily
Unlucky Plaza to open festival; 147 films from 50 countries.
The 25th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has announced its line-up with 147 films from 50 countries.
After a hiatus of two years, the Sgiff will open as part of the Singapore Media Festival, which also comprises the Asia TV Forum & Market (Atf), ScreenSingapore (SS) and Asian Television Awards (Ata).
Hosted by the Media Development Authority (Mda), the Singapore Media Festival (and Sgiff) will run Dec 4-14.
Sgiff will open with Ken Kwek’s Singaporean thriller Unlucky Plaza, which premiered in Toronto last month. Making a feature directorial debut with the film, Kwek previously was screenwriter on films such as Glen Goei’s The Blue Mansion and Kelvin Tong’s It’s A Great, Great World.
The fest will close with Lucky Kuswandi’s Indonesian film In The Absence Of The Sun. The film the follows three women in the megacity of Jakara, it is Kuswandi’s second feature after [link=tt...
The 25th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has announced its line-up with 147 films from 50 countries.
After a hiatus of two years, the Sgiff will open as part of the Singapore Media Festival, which also comprises the Asia TV Forum & Market (Atf), ScreenSingapore (SS) and Asian Television Awards (Ata).
Hosted by the Media Development Authority (Mda), the Singapore Media Festival (and Sgiff) will run Dec 4-14.
Sgiff will open with Ken Kwek’s Singaporean thriller Unlucky Plaza, which premiered in Toronto last month. Making a feature directorial debut with the film, Kwek previously was screenwriter on films such as Glen Goei’s The Blue Mansion and Kelvin Tong’s It’s A Great, Great World.
The fest will close with Lucky Kuswandi’s Indonesian film In The Absence Of The Sun. The film the follows three women in the megacity of Jakara, it is Kuswandi’s second feature after [link=tt...
- 10/28/2014
- by hjnoh2007@gmail.com (Jean Noh)
- ScreenDaily
Liv Mjönes, Ruth Vega Fernandez, With Every Heartbeat Breakthrough Selections Expecting: In Chile, a young girl and her boyfriend wait for a black-market drug to take effect in this tense and insightful examination of teen pregnancy. Dir/Scr Francisca Fuenzalida. Chile. U.S. Premiere. Light Of Mine: Rapidly going blind, photographer Owen and his wife Laura take a life-changing trip to Yellowstone National Park where they experience a beauty that rivals their tragedy. Dir Brett Eichenberger. Scr Jill Remensnyder. USA. Three And A Half: Three women risk everything and travel to the northwest Iranian border in hopes of escaping prison and reuniting with their comrades. Dir/Scr Naghi Nemati. Cast Samaneh Vafaiezadeh, Shooka Karimi, Negar Hassanzadeh, Mehdi Poormoosa. Iran. U.S. Premiere. With Every Heartbeat: In this Swedish romantic drama, uptight Mia attends her father’s engagement party and not only gains a stepmother, but also a new lover,...
- 10/23/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Solos
Pusan International Film Festival
BUSAN, South Korea -- Were the art house crowd to hiss at Solos, and the mainstream audience to walk out halfway from its screening, it would be perfectly understandable, though it is not a sloppily executed or insincere piece of work.
Co-directed by Singaporeans Loo Zihan and Kan Lume, Solos is a nondialogue representation of the relationship between a gay couple and one of their mothers. Shot and edited like a graduation assignment by a student trying to apply every technique he learned, it is a misfired attempt to be both intimate and coolly detached, both documentarylike and experimental. Consequently, the final product is none of the above. It probably does not belong to a festival or public screening but would feel more at home as a museum visual art acquisition or looped on a TV in an avant garde installation.
The opening shot of a male couple entangled in each other's arms hints at more erotic things that never come. The larger half of the film is a decontextualized record of their mundane activities, like packing and unpacking in their own apartment, having a meal with one of their mothers, taking framed pictures in or out of the two households.
The couple's interactions are intercut with the lonely existence of the younger man's mother doing household chores, making futile calls (probably to her son) and having a histrionic fit. Since there is no dialogue to contextualize the characters' visible emotional states, one feels very unwilling to get drawn into their worlds.
A dolorous air hangs over the couple's appearances, even when they are having sex with each other, themselves or with other parties. These are choreographed in familiar positions that will hardly raise any eyebrows. Perhaps certain national guidelines discouraging the portrayal of homosexuals as having healthy, upbeat, fulfilling lifestyles are taken into consideration, but it's no excuse as there are a hundred ways of making taboo tantalizing.
For every 10 budding gay Asian filmmakers, there is probably one Tsai Ming-liang wannabe. In Solo, the immobile long takes of the mother's domestic drudgery and nervous tension have the outlines of familiar Tsai standards, like the medium close-up of Yang Kuei Mei crying in one take uncut for about five and a half minutes in "Vive L'Amour." The gay men's coupling also echoes Tsai's indispensable scenes of lonely, loveless sex, but Kan and Loo barely grasp the form let alone the content.
The film is partly shot in sepia or black and white, and partly in sharp, piercing colors. The latter are mostly reserved for some surrealistic shots or sequences, of the couple posing in a verdant bamboo forest or a fish flapping about gulping its last breath. Cinematographically quite professional and sometimes even stunningly composed, they are nothing but visual non-sequiturs.
SOLOS
Red Dawn Productions Pte. Ltd
Credits:
Directors: Kan Lume, Loo Zihan
Screenwriter: Loo Zihan
Producer: Florence Ang
Music: Darren Ng
Editors: Kan Lume, Loo Zihan, Meghan Khan
Cast:
Older man: Lim Yu-Beng
Younger man: Loo Zihan
Mother: Goh Guat Kian
Running time -- 70 minutes
No MPAA rating...
BUSAN, South Korea -- Were the art house crowd to hiss at Solos, and the mainstream audience to walk out halfway from its screening, it would be perfectly understandable, though it is not a sloppily executed or insincere piece of work.
Co-directed by Singaporeans Loo Zihan and Kan Lume, Solos is a nondialogue representation of the relationship between a gay couple and one of their mothers. Shot and edited like a graduation assignment by a student trying to apply every technique he learned, it is a misfired attempt to be both intimate and coolly detached, both documentarylike and experimental. Consequently, the final product is none of the above. It probably does not belong to a festival or public screening but would feel more at home as a museum visual art acquisition or looped on a TV in an avant garde installation.
The opening shot of a male couple entangled in each other's arms hints at more erotic things that never come. The larger half of the film is a decontextualized record of their mundane activities, like packing and unpacking in their own apartment, having a meal with one of their mothers, taking framed pictures in or out of the two households.
The couple's interactions are intercut with the lonely existence of the younger man's mother doing household chores, making futile calls (probably to her son) and having a histrionic fit. Since there is no dialogue to contextualize the characters' visible emotional states, one feels very unwilling to get drawn into their worlds.
A dolorous air hangs over the couple's appearances, even when they are having sex with each other, themselves or with other parties. These are choreographed in familiar positions that will hardly raise any eyebrows. Perhaps certain national guidelines discouraging the portrayal of homosexuals as having healthy, upbeat, fulfilling lifestyles are taken into consideration, but it's no excuse as there are a hundred ways of making taboo tantalizing.
For every 10 budding gay Asian filmmakers, there is probably one Tsai Ming-liang wannabe. In Solo, the immobile long takes of the mother's domestic drudgery and nervous tension have the outlines of familiar Tsai standards, like the medium close-up of Yang Kuei Mei crying in one take uncut for about five and a half minutes in "Vive L'Amour." The gay men's coupling also echoes Tsai's indispensable scenes of lonely, loveless sex, but Kan and Loo barely grasp the form let alone the content.
The film is partly shot in sepia or black and white, and partly in sharp, piercing colors. The latter are mostly reserved for some surrealistic shots or sequences, of the couple posing in a verdant bamboo forest or a fish flapping about gulping its last breath. Cinematographically quite professional and sometimes even stunningly composed, they are nothing but visual non-sequiturs.
SOLOS
Red Dawn Productions Pte. Ltd
Credits:
Directors: Kan Lume, Loo Zihan
Screenwriter: Loo Zihan
Producer: Florence Ang
Music: Darren Ng
Editors: Kan Lume, Loo Zihan, Meghan Khan
Cast:
Older man: Lim Yu-Beng
Younger man: Loo Zihan
Mother: Goh Guat Kian
Running time -- 70 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/8/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Very limited engagement for 'Solos'
SINGAPORE -- A Singapore film with homosexual themes has been pulled off the Singapore International Film Festival public screening schedule after the country's censors demanded three cuts, festival organizers said Friday.
"Solos", the only homegrown film scheduled to compete in the festival's Silver Screen Awards, will still be eligible for the competition and will be screened privately for the festival jury.
The film, directed by Kan Lume and Loo Zihan, was originally scheduled for an April 25 screening.
"The decision to cancel the public screening is a joint decision between the producers and the organizers of the festival to preserve the principal that films at the festival should be shown uncut," SIFF said in a statement.
The 77-minute "Solos", described as one of the SIFF's most daring films, explores love, desire and the struggle to express feelings and was inspired by the true story of a teacher-student relationship, the directors said.
"Solos", the only homegrown film scheduled to compete in the festival's Silver Screen Awards, will still be eligible for the competition and will be screened privately for the festival jury.
The film, directed by Kan Lume and Loo Zihan, was originally scheduled for an April 25 screening.
"The decision to cancel the public screening is a joint decision between the producers and the organizers of the festival to preserve the principal that films at the festival should be shown uncut," SIFF said in a statement.
The 77-minute "Solos", described as one of the SIFF's most daring films, explores love, desire and the struggle to express feelings and was inspired by the true story of a teacher-student relationship, the directors said.
- 4/21/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.