Singapore Shorts ’25 – Programme 2: Moving Through Discomfort: 🕸🤼🩸 + Post-screening discussion
Programme 2: Moving Through Discomfort:🕸🤼🩸
Moving Through Discomfort 🕸🤼🩸shifts between mediums and registers to capture conflict, catharsis, and the moments of struggle that take place in-between.
There will be 6 short films screened for Programme 2: Moving Through Discomfort:🕸🤼🩸 of Singapore Shorts ‘25.
This screening will be followed by casual discussion hosted by Isaac Chan.
The Rating for Selection 1 is R21. The total duration is 58 min.
Uneven Steps
蹣跚
Slow
Year: 2025
Director: Toh Jia Jun
Runtime: 15 min
Country: Singapore
Language: No dialogue
Rating: PG
Synopsis
Uneven Steps charts the Butoh body as it moves, struggles and convulses in its tussle with pain. It moves to connect, yearning to dissolve its suffering, towards a newfound catharsis.
Director’s Bio
Toh Jia Jun graduated from the class of Gerard Byrne at the Städelschule in 2023 with a Meisterschüler. His documentary short Bridging Our Times (2024) was screened at Objectifs’ FreshTake!, LENScape and the Singapore Youth Film Festival.
I Think I’m Going to Die
Now
Year: 2024
Director: Tan Ning Xuan
Runtime: 5 min
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: TBC
Synopsis
In this mixed media landscape of puppetry, collage, sand and clay, a young girl finds her body afflicted by a mysterious condition. Panicked, she races through different worlds searching for a diagnosis.
Director’s Bio
Ning Xuan’s love for unique, mixed-media experimentation inspires her work. She recently graduated from Nanyang Technological University. I Think I’m Going to Die is her final year project which she completed with Meghan Poh and Audrey Yong.
no matter what, i want to be next to you
Slow
Year: 2024
Director: Ezzam Rahman
Runtime: 9 min
Country: Singapore
Language: No dialogue
Rating: TBC
Synopsis
no matter what, i want to be next to you captures the filmmaker’s intimate experience as the primary caregiver of his mother, illuminating the daily routines and emotional labour involved as their bodies gradually yield to the march of time.
Director’s Bio
Ezzam Rahman is a multi-disciplinary artist known for his interest in the body and the use of common, easily accessible, yet unconventional media. He creates works that are often autobiographical, time-based, and ephemeral.
Vijay
Now
Year: 2024
Director: Prashan S/O Elanjelian
Runtime: 8 min
Country: Singapore
Language: No dialogue
Rating: TBC
Synopsis
Untold stories of migrant workers’ hardships and sacrifices, the very people who built the lavish and luxurious Singapore we know, are conveyed through the eyes of Vijay.
Director’s Bio
Prashan S/O Elanjelian is a 2024 graduate of the School of Film & Media Studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He focuses on using film to explore taboo or untold topics, aiming to offer new perspectives through his work.
Diving For Air
Cyclical
Year: 2024
Director: Tang Kang Sheng
Runtime: 15 min
Country: Singapore
Language: English, Mandarin
Rating: PG13
Synopsis
Set against the liminal space of tiled swimming pools and glimmering waters, a young female lifeguard wrestles with the decision to continue her workplace affair as she is forced to confront her lover’s family.
Director’s Bio
Kang Sheng takes special interest in fractures within human connections and explorations of the perception of memory. His short films include Passenger (2014) which won the Special Jury Prize at the 6th Singapore Short Film Awards.
The Inescapable Desire of Roots
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Slow
Year: 2024
Director: Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen
Runtime: 6 min
Country: Singapore
Language: Mandarin
Rating: R21
Synopsis
A man with hair growing wildly over his body is taken by a mania of ecstasy and anguish. He struggles with the hair becoming a means of discipline and punishment against himself, while overwhelmed by the explosive jubilance of its sprouting.
Director’s Bio
Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen are a filmmaker and artist duo. Their films often explore existential anxiety, speculative fiction and body horror, and have screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam and BFI London Film Festival.
About the host
Isaac Chan (Kinny) is a filmmaker based in Singapore.
A graduate of Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design & Media with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Art (Digital Filmmaking), Isaac aims to create works that marry common folk narratives with the extravagance of living.
Isaac hopes to make films that both make audiences laugh and break their hearts. In love with the symbiotic waltz between joy and tragedy, he is inspired by grandiose, laughing, and the saturated colours of our shared lore. As a moderator, he has been the mainstay moderator for Objectif’s Freshtake Programmes’ past 3 editions (2023 – 2025).
For the full Singapore Short ’25 programme, please click here.
Friends of AFA members, please read the membership guide on how to purchase your discounted tickets and redeem your complimentary tickets.
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