There will be eight short films screened for Selection 1 of Singapore Shorts ‘22.
This screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers.  

The Rating for Selection 1 is 

Dreaming (2021)
Original Title: 醉死梦生
Directed by: Nelson Yeo
Runtime: 15 min 25 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: PG13 (Some Mature Content)

Synopsis
Three former schoolmates—a married couple and a carefree bachelor—now middle-aged, reunite at a chalet. Hazy memories of the past are stirred up, leading to the resurfacing of a long-buried love triangle. The trio are left to confront their repressed feelings.

Director’s Bio
Nelson Yeo is a Singaporean filmmaker. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking from Nanyang Technological University in 2011. His recent short films, Mary, Mary, So Contrary (2019) and Here is Not There (2019), have been selected for international film festivals such as Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg and Cairo International Film Festival.

 

JULIET’S DINNER (2022)
Directed by: Elsa Wong
Runtime: 5 min 10 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: PG

Synopsis
JULIET’S DINNER is a collaborative experimental film between Elsa Wong and Stephanie Jane Burt featuring the track, “Last Day” by Subsonic Eye, which follows the character Juliet who escapes a dinner party through an encounter with an enigmatic dollhouse. Originally created for video art platform Monzoom.xyz in a 12-part series, the video explores notions of identity, pop culture and translocal histories through karaoke and sci-fi aesthetics.

Director’s Bio
Elsa Wong is an art director and photographer who works in a range of media, mainly on fashion campaigns, music videos and short films. She explores themes of fairy tales, creating surrealistic environments and characters. She has shot for fashion collective Youths In Balaclava which was featured on i-D and many others. 

 

Fantastic Fruits (2022)
Original Title: Buah Dahsyat
Directed by: Khairullah Rahim
Runtime: 7 min 18 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: Malay
Rating: PG

Synopsis
Buah Dahsyat (Fantastic Fruits) is a short film capturing the veiled and coded lives of residents in Boon Lay, Singapore through enigmatic fruits acting as multifarious symbols for intersecting themes including everyday rituals, desire, social mobility and labour. Anchored by the voice of drag queen Luna Thicc, the fruits’ behaviour and habits become enmeshed with found footage, smartphone videos and kitsch popular culture imagery.

Director’s Bio
Khairullah Rahim is an interdisciplinary artist based in Singapore. He works across objects, installation, painting, photography and moving images. His research looks into strategies of resourcefulness for survival in environments under surveillance.

 

Baked Beans (2022)
WORLD PREMIERE

Directed by: Mohammad Iqbal Rohan Tutuko
Runtime: 10 min 19 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: NC16 (Drug References and Some Coarse Language)

Synopsis
A homage to 90s coming-of-age slacker comedies such as Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and Kevin Smith’s Clerks, Baked Beans features the weird and wonderful adventures of two spirited and wayward teenagers, Roro and Rayray, as they venture into the tricky world of the baked beans business, and explore its subversive potentials.

Director’s Bio
Iqbal Rohan is a fresh graduate from ITE filmmaking with a penchant for dialogue-heavy films, favouring whimsicality and the spirit of punk as a form of escapism from the world of depressing politics.

 

New Normal (2021)
ASIAN PREMIERE

Directed by: Chul Heo
Runtime: 8 min 6 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: PG

Synopsis
In the summer of 2025 of the ‘new normal era’, where gravity changes are the norm, an unlikely bond forms between a film nerd and a dancer as they contend with strange gravity powers. Shot entirely in a vertical frame, New Normal is a dystopian look at Singapore through a sci-fi fantasy lens.

Director’s Bio
Heo Chul is a filmmaker teaching at the School of Art, Design and Media in Nanyang Technological University. Chul has directed three feature films that were released in theatres nationwide in South Korea.

 

In Pursuit of Temples in the Sky (2021)
Director: Gagandeep Singh Sidhu
Runtime: 2 min 21 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: No dialogue
Rating: PG13 (Some Sexual References)

Synopsis
In Pursuit of Temples in the Sky introduces a fictional landscape in which the worlds of Sikhism and Queerness collide. Conceived as a fashion film where textures and textiles take the foreground, narratives are constructed by examining and dismantling the bodies of work of two poets, Avtaar Singh Paash and Richard Siken.

Director’s Bio
Gagandeep Singh Sidhu’s work largely uses text to derive a visual counterpart. Each of his work is conceptualised through the merging of (at least) two distinct themes, completed with touches of maximalist sensibilities.

 

Strawberry Cheesecake (2021)
Director: Tan Siyou
Runtime: 9 min 46 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: NC16 (Coarse Language)

Synopsis
Confronted by an authoritative principal armed with school rules, three rebellious students take respite on the rooftop of their campus to smoke electronic cigarettes. When caught and threatened with expulsion, their revenge prank on the principal takes a sinister turn.

Director’s Bio
Tan Siyou is a Singaporean filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her films have been shown at film festivals worldwide, including Berlin, Locarno and Toronto. She’s working on her first feature, Amoeba.

 

Aunty CB (2021)
WORLD PREMIERE

Director: Fiona A. Cheong
Runtime: 4 min 28 sec
Country: Singapore
Language: English, Hokkien
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Some Sexual References)

Synopsis
Shot on Super 8, Aunty CB is a memory montage of a woman’s stream of consciousness and her honest introspection surrounding gendered family dynamics and childhood trauma. Framed as a confessional monologue, Singlish, Hokkien, and English are employed to capture a linguistic and vernacular portrait of the eponymous character.

Director’s Bio
Fiona A. Cheong is a Singaporean educator. She explores and expresses themes on childhood, trauma, and language through writing and film. Her written monologue as an art book, Aunty CB, was published in 2021 with Knuckles & Notch.

 

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