This talk is free. Do register your interest by checking out a ticket.

Talk Details

30 November 2025
Level 7, Launch Programme Room, National Library Building
3:30pm – 4:30pm

About the talk

Journey with the Asian Film Archive as we recount the fascinating story behind the rediscovery and preservation of an originally presumed lost 1977 film, Dream of the Red Chamber 1977. Shot in Singapore with a largely local amateur cast, the film reimagines the famous Chinese literary classic of the same title through a modern lens. Its recovery began with a single surviving print in Taiwan—leading to a restoration that uncovered its forgotten history and the people behind it. Questions of authorship, ownership, and memory show how unearthed film histories can reveal so much of the past and bring people together in the present.

The restored version of the film will be premiering at the Singapore International Film Festival on 4 December 2025 with a Q&A session.

About the film

A classic Chinese novel is given a new setting in 1970s Singapore, where burgeoning affections are challenged by the decline of a wealthy family.

Set against the backdrop of the wealthy Jia clan’s slow financial decline, Jia Bao-yu falls in love with his cousin Lin Dai-yu, newly arrived from Taiwan. Their growing mutual affection gets derailed when their family’s materialistic interests and another cousin from the United States comes between them.

Considered one of the four great masterworks of Chinese literature, Chiu’s adaptation reimagines this classical saga by transposing it to 1970s Singapore, featuring a largely local cast and weaving in various idiosyncratic film tropes popular at the time. In this rare rediscovery, Dream of the Red Chamber offers a unique and uncommon glimpse into early independent and transnational filmmaking in a rapidly developing post-independence Singapore.

Speaker: Chew Tee Pao (Senior Archivist), Asian Film Archive

Chew Tee Pao has been with the Asian Film Archive (AFA) since 2009. As Senior Archivist, Tee Pao plans AFA’s preservation strategies and oversees the development of film collections, as well as curating various film programmes to showcase these collections. He also selects and oversees AFA’s film restorations. His publications on film preservation include an article in NANG magazine and a co-written chapter on “Independent Digital Filmmaking and its Impact on Film Archiving in Singapore” for the book Singapore Cinema: New Perspectives (2017).