There will be seven short films screened for Selection 1 of Singapore Shorts ‘23.

The Rating for Selection 1 is PG

Every Floor Looks the Same
Year: 2022
Director: Gladys Ng
Runtime: 20 min
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: PG

Synopsis
Searching for a lost bird, a young girl wanders the urban landscape. Every Floor Looks The Same meditates on the man-made nature of life in Singapore, through the eyes of a languishing Osmanthüs who finds both humour and sadness in the hierarchy of things.

Director’s Bio
Gladys’ works are true to her nature—nuanced, gentle, interspersed with wry humour and often experimental. Her short films are hosted in the Objectifs Film Library. She is currently developing her first feature Every Mall Burns the Same (Special Mention, SGIFF Southeast Asian Film Lab ’22).

 

The Sea is a Blue Memory
ASIAN PREMIERE
Year: 2022
Director: Priyageetha Dia
Runtime: 10 min
Country: Singapore
Rating: PG

Synopsis
With the journey of migrant labourers crossing into Malaya as a point of departure, Priyageetha Dia’s animated video attends to the sea as a speculative site of memory and remembrance. The Sea is a Blue Memory reconfigures colonial narratives of indenture, forming new imaginaries through the gaze of a wandering sea spirit.

Director’s bio
Priyageetha Dia works with time-based media and installation. Her practice looks into speculative narratives of Southeast Asian plantations, recovering stories of resistance. Her research interests include migrant histories, our relationships with the non-human, and building nonlinear narratives through digital semiotics.

 

Still or Sparkling
WORLD PREMIERE
Year: 2023
Director: Matthew Chan
Runtime: 4 min
Country: Singapore
Rating: Exemptible

Synopsis
Shot on a handheld Mini DV camera, Still or Sparkling explores the way light dances with water, harnessing the expressive, imperfect qualities of early digital technology to create images akin to Impressionist paintings.

Director’s bio
Matthew is a Singapore-based writer and filmmaker majoring in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. He was part of the Singapore International Film Festival’s Youth Jury & Critics Programme in 2019. As a freelance film critic, he contributes regularly to Talking Shorts, SINdie, and various festivals.

PULAU
WORLD PREMIERE
Year: 2022
Director: Stephanie Thong
Runtime: 17 min
Country: Singapore
Language: Malay, English
Rating: PG

Synopsis
Decades have passed since the Orang Pulau, or Island People, have moved from Pulau Sudong, Pulau Tekong and Pulau Ubin to the mainland to make way for national urban development. With the last batch of original Orang Pulau greying, what does the future hold for these indigenous people of Singapore?

Director’s bio
Stephanie is a filmmaker passionate about serving the community through documentaries. Her approach centres on listening and giving a voice to unheard communities. Aiming to create capsules for timeless stories, she hopes to preserve Singapore’s local culture for generations to come.

 

Get to the Point
Year: 2022
Director: AWKNDAFFR (Wayne Lim and Soh Kay Min)
Runtime: 5 min
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: General

Synopsis
Get to the Point emerges from nondescript footage filmed while creating Islandwide Coverage, a multi-site, multi-authored project that unfolded in parallel. This video essay follows the viewfinder’s movement through a looping circuit of over a hundred thumbnails of images-on-the-move—part poor documentation, part reflexive lag.

Director’s bio
AWKNDAFFR (Wayne Lim and Soh Kay Min) works at the intersections of art, theory, and praxis. The operative logic of the collective revolves around relationality, agency, and cooperation between peoples and practices, facilitating different modes of gathering.

 

Familiar Stranger
Year: 2023
Director: Adhishni D/O Mathialagan
Runtime: 15 min
Country: Vietnam, Singapore
Language: English, Russian and Vietnamese
Rating: PG

Synopsis
Growing up in Slavic communities before returning to Vietnam, Lien and Trung found themselves torn between multiple cultural identities as they wrestled with conflicting social pressures. Familiar Stranger documents their journey towards a sense of belonging with the support of a like-minded community.

Director’s bio
Adhishni Mathialagan, a student filmmaker from Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication, creates authentic films praised for emotional depth. She aims to inspire creative passion and resonate with audiences through her work.

 

Home Planet
Year: 2022
Director: Maximilian Liang
Runtime: 15 min
Country: Singapore
Language: English, Mandarin
Rating: G

Synopsis
Shot in black-and-white, Home Planet follows a young astronaut who attempts to mend ties with his estranged parents in the wake of his brother’s death. Watching his son depart for his mission, the father whispers a prayer for both his sons headed to the heavens.

Director’s bio
Filmmaking is how Maximilian best expresses himself. Awarded an IMDA Scholarship for his undergraduate studies at LASALLE College of the Arts, his credits in multimedia design include National Day Parade Shows and theatrical productions.

 

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For the full Singapore Shorts ’23 programme, please click here.

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