SINGAPORE SHORTS ’19 is an annual showcase celebrating the best and the most promising local short films. A critical platform for excellence and diverse thought in moving images, the selection is overseen by a panel of respected professionals across Singapore’s film industry. Alongside screenings of the selected cinematic works, the programme will also feature post-screening discussions with the filmmakers and dedicated reviews from critics.

The 2019 edition will also include a special section of older titles curated by local playwright Alfian Sa’at from the Asian Film Archive’s collection.

Screening Schedule
Saturday, 10 August | 4pm – 6pm
The Rest is History: Selections from the Asian Film Archive Collection

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Sunday, 11 August | 4 – 6pm
Official Selection 1 

SIN-SFO (2018, dir. Leon Cheo)
Ah Beng in Wonderland (2019, dir. Carla Castle)
Bangla (2018, dir. Idette Chen)
A Waking (2019, dir. Clare Chong)
Two Islands (2019, dir. Nicole Lim Xuan)

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Sunday, 11 August | 8 – 10pm
Official Selection 2 

Club 555 (2018, dir. Chew Jia Hui)
Dance of a Humble Atheist (2019, dir. Toh Hun Ping)
Siblings (2018, dir. Tang Kang Sheng)
You Idiot (2018, dir. Kris Ong)
Beyond a Chamber that Externalises All The Time, or Séance (2019, dir. Chong Lii and Milon Goh)

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Wednesday, 14 August | 8pm – 10pm
The Rest is History: Selections from the Asian Film Archive Collection

Saturday, 17 August | 4 – 6pm
Official Selection 3 

Chasing Paper (2018, dir. Shoki Lin)
Trailer Boys (2018, dir. Yusri Shaggy)
Still (2019, dir. Khidhir Kassim)
Flexier Than You (2019, dir. Zhiyi Cao)
Vios  (2018, dir. Ler Jiyuan and Wendy Toh)

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Sunday, 18 August | 5 – 7pm
Official Selection 4

Kingdom (2018, dir. Tan Wei Keong)
Bare (2018, dir. Martin Loh)
A Dance for Ren Hang (2018, dir. Lei Yuan Bin)
Religious Procession (2019, dir. Dave Lim)
Foul Ball (2018, dir. Kayue Li)
Tenebrae (2018, dir. Nicole Midori Woodford)

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Guest Curator for The Rest is History

Alfian Sa’at
Playwright and Poet

Alfian Sa’at is the Resident Playwright of Wild Rice. His published works include three collections of poetry: ‘One Fierce Hour’, ‘A History of Amnesia’ and ‘The Invisible Manuscript’; a collection of short stories, ‘Corridor’; a collection of flash fiction, ‘Malay Sketches’; three collections of plays as well as the published play ‘Cooling Off Day’. In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. His plays and short stories have been translated into German, Swedish, Danish and Japanese

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Selection Panel
Aishah Abu Bakar
Independent Film Programmer

Aishah was most recently a Programme Manager for the Singapore International Film Festival (2015 – 2018), managing the Asian feature film section, as well as organising the masterclasses and talks. Prior to that, she was the Programme Manager for Moving Images at The Substation (2009 – 2014). She was in charge of organizing film screenings and related events, such as the Singapore Short Film Awards, the Experimental Film Forum, Singapore Indie Doc Fest, and First Take, a regular running local platform for first time filmmakers. She had previously been a film traffic coordinator for 2007 and 2009 editions of the Singapore International Film Festival, and has had a hand in television productions for Mediacorp’s Channel NewsAsia and Suria.

Pauline Soh
Senior Manager, National Gallery Singapore

Pauline has had over ten years of experience in the areas of film programming, production and archiving. She holds an MA in Contemporary Cinema Cultures from King’s College London and began her work in the field at the Asian Film Archive, where she developed its catalogue of films at the Esplanade Library for public access. She is currently Senior Manager (Programmes) at the National Gallery Singapore, playing the role of film programmer for the Gallery’s annual festival Painting with Light: Festival of International Films on Art that showcases over 30 feature-length and short films as well as single-channel video works, and numerous special screenings in conjunction with the Gallery’s exhibitions such as Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe and Beyond and Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. Pauline was also engaged as panel speaker at the Education Forum, 10th Seoul International Youth Film Festival and the Programmer Conference at the Japan Foundation Asia Centre, 29th Tokyo International Film Festival.

Kristin Saw
Assistant Director, Singapore Film Commission

Kristin has been with the Singapore Film Commission (SFC), part of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), since 2008. The SFC aims to nurture, support, promote Singapore talent in filmmaking, the production of Singapore films and a film industry in Singapore. Prior to joining the SFC, she was a programme manager at an independent contemporary arts centre in Singapore, The Substation, where she curated independent films and organised events for the local film community. Her interest in Singapore films began when she led a group, nuSTUDIOS Film Productions, at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She has been rooting for homegrown stories and talents ever since.

Sangjoon Lee
Assistant Professor of Asian Cinema, Nanyang Technological University

Sangjoon is Assistant Professor of Asian Cinema at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. Lee is the editor of Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media (University of Michigan Press, 2015) and Rediscovering Korean Cinema (University of Michigan Press, 2019). His essays have appeared in Screen, Film History, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Transnational Cinemas, and The Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema. Lee is the winner of the David H. Culbert IAMHIST-Routledge Prize for the Best Article by an Established Scholar (2019). His book The Asian Cinema Network: The Asian Film Festival, US Propaganda, and the Cultural Cold War in Asia will be published in fall 2020 (Cornell University Press).

Thong Kay Wee
Outreach Officer, Asian Film Archive

Kay Wee is the Outreach Officer and Programmer at the Asian Film Archive (AFA). He is responsible for devising strategies to promote the rich film heritage of Singapore and Asia as part of the AFA’s mission. Since 2014, he has overseen over 30 different film-centric programmes for the archive, including the exhibition series Celluloid Void: The Lost Films of Southeast Asia (2015 – 2016), Asian Restored Classics (2016-2018) and producing for the cross-disciplinary showcase State of Motion (2016 – 2019) under Singapore Art Week. He was also the curator for Singular Screens, the international film programme presented under Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA), in 2018 and 2019. He is most recently heading the regular film programming at Oldham Theatre, a new cinema space situated at the National Archives of Singapore (NAS), since May 2019.