Reel Revolution - 29 July

As I won't be in Singapore this Saturday, I suppose I'm spared from having to choose between Reel Revolution and Short Cuts this weekend. I'm generally skeptical about activist filmmaking, as you can see in an earlier post, but Reel Revolution sounds fascinating because it's about drawing attention to our social problems, while milking the intrinsic zeal and idealism of youth giving young people a grounding in both filmmaking and local social issues. There's even a networking session on Sunday.

Looks like the films will be uploaded. Am looking forward to watching them when I come back. If you're going:

REEL REVOLUTION POWWOW
29 July 2006, Saturday
2.30pm to 5.30pm
The Substation Guinness Theatre
Free Admission
Register with register@revolution.youth.sg

Short reviews for Short Cuts on 22nd July:

24/7/06 UPDATE! Gavin Lim's replied to comments about Hello? on SGFilm. (Link to the thread).

(earlier post)

Let's see –

Hello?

The director apes Wong Kar Wai's direction, look and music choices in In The Mood For Love. He also tries to imitate Christopher Doyle’s cinematography, but the only things that achieved were extremely orangey or extremely grey scenes. The short film eventually descends into camp, which amused me to no end since it was so incongruous with all the ersatz In The Mood For Love.

Old Woman

Ah, this one probably had the most significant narrative of the four. Well scripted and paced, particularly the scenes leading up to the end where the titular old woman’s sense of loss and confusion is explained with economy of dialogue. Not as polished – shot on DV – but this short has substance.

Lost Sole

Old man loses his sandals, and the randomness of the ensuing events reminded me a little bit of Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know (IMDB entry). The semantic pun on sole/soul isn't bad, but probably not strong enough to anchor a short film on existential crisis. Also marred by a few incongruities. For instance, the protagonist complains about cardphones being "new technology" when they’ve been around for more than a decade.

3 Meals

Essentially a string of gags that mines the wealth of Singaporean cultural stereotypes so deeply that it probably wouldn’t be able to extricate itself for a non-Singaporean audience. It's really funny -- if you're Singaporean, but Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh have never claimed to be international. Polished production helps, I suppose: the short film looks good and sounds great.

I won't be around for the ones on the 29th, 'cos I'll be in Hong Kong then. Naturally, I plan to hit all the film-related places there. Which ones do you like?

Were you at the NLB on Fri night?

Mr Kishore Mahbubani deftly handling the Q&A after our screening of Broken Promises (earlier post) at the NLB on Friday night

Were you there? From what I've been hearing, you should have lots to say about it ;) Feel free to leave your comments.

(Thanks to eilonwy for the photo! Go check out her blog: http://hyperreality.blogspot.com)

"Happy Together" - 10th Anniversary

Gah! 10 years already? Promo insert for the 10th Anniversary DVD/CD box set of Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together (IMDB entry). Text on the cover says that there're "unseen stills" inside (which is why I bought the magazine it came with, but it was cheap anyway), but the stills are so tiny. Some pictures of Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung taking tango lessons for their roles too. The Limited Edition DVD/CD set itself is full of premiums -- including an exclusive pair of... boxers? You can see the box here.

(The magazine is Milk, issue 252 btw.)

"Broken Promises" - The U.N. at 60

Don't forget - we're screening Broken Promises - The U.N. at 60 at the National Library this evening.

7.30pm - 9.30pm
Possibility Room, 5th level
National Library,
100 Victoria Street


Stay for our post-screening discussion with Mr. Kishore Mahbubani, top diplomat and Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

SFS entry: http://www.sfs.org.sg/event.php?id=31

Broken Promises - The U.N. at 60 website: http://www.brokenpromisesmovie.com/

Jan Svankmajer's "Food"

UPDATE (21/7/06): The clips have been removed from Youtube 'cos of copyright concerns.

The first of Jan Svankmajer's surreal Food animation trilogy is aptly titled: "Breakfast". You can catch the other two in the series (guess what their titles are?) on WFMU's Beware of the Blog.

Svankmajer is an superb Czech animator from Prague. More info here: http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank/.

National Film Board of Canada - Focus on Animation

To showcase their nation's animators, the National Film Board of Canada has put 50 animated shorts from its archives online. (Psst! Singapore Film Commission: when's your turn?)

Focus on Animation - ONF

(From Boing Boing)

"S11" at the Picturehouse from 3 Aug '06

This local film looks promising but I've only seen the promos. We'll soon have a chance to see for ourselves: S11 opens at the Picturehouse Aug 3.

By the awesome power of Youtube, you can view the trailer and teaser.

More info on this blog: http://wurh.com/

The Curious Sale of the Book at Lunch-time

My company, attempting to be a good corporate citizen, runs a couple of charitable activities every year. One of them is a used book sale: all books are donated by the employees, and all proceeds disappear into some charity or other. Anyway, among the Danielle Steel paperbacks and multiple copies of The Purpose-Driven Life (what, it didn't work?) you get one or two interesting things like --

-- which I grabbed at once. It's pretty thick, and I'm contemplating leaving the book in my office as a pretty distraction means of destressing.

And I'm curious. Who had the book in the first place? And why would he or she get rid of it? I know there's another film addict buff in the company but I don't think she would've parted with this. Could there be another film buff in the company?

3rd Singapore Short Cuts

I'm proud of the way in which our museums are supporting local filmmakers. To the National Heritage Board (NHB) -- keep up the good work! We wanna see more events like:

Singapore Short Cuts, one of Singapore’s premiere showcases of outstanding local short films returns for a third season. Don't miss the Singapore premieres of 3Meals by Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh (Singapore Dreaming) and of Eric Khoo’s latest short film No Day Off. The achievements of early local short filmmakers will also be celebrated in a special section on shorts from the 1990s with works by Abdul Nizam (Stories About Love), Lim Suat Yen (The Road Less Travelled) and K Rajagopal (Absence) Closing the 3rd Singapore Short Cuts is a panel discussion on the development of local short filmmaking with members of the community like Juan Foo, Yuni Hadi and Tan Pin Pin.

It's a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and it's near the Orchard and City Hall areas. Go go go.

More details on the SGFilm thread.

National Museum of Singapore website

Download the programme (PDF)

Stitch:Initiative Against Sweatshops - "Underneath the Radar 2006"

Some group calling itself Stitch:Initiative Against Sweatshops (IAS) has assembled a series of 5 documentaries:

Stitch:Initiative Against Sweatshops -- Underneath the Radar 2006.

Who are these folks? According to their website, they're

a not for profit consumer base collective in Singapore spanning students, designers and individuals from diverse fields, whose aim is to raise awareness about the atrocities and unethical practices of sweatshop labour.

A "not for profit consumer base collective"? Uh huh. Sure.

Well, I think sweatshops are horrible too, and that companies will gouge their customers if they can get away with it. But I don't think there's any overarching conspiracy by some multinational capitalist cabal. In fact, my time's probably better spent finishing Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter's thoroughly sane The Rebel Sell.

SFS Experiments: "Deadline" + discussion

Our programming's gotten more experimental, thanks to feedback that we've been receiving from our members. Keep those comments coming in, whether you're a member, ex-member or just a film lover (like us), OK?

We've teamed up with the enlightened folks at the National Library Board (NLB) to bring you two documentaries + discussion sessions. First one is on Sunday 9th July:

DEADLINE
Directed by: Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson
Duration: 90 mins
Interviewing and featuring lawyers, politicians, civil society representatives, death row inmates and families of victims, directors Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson tackle the volatile topic of the American capital punishment system with intelligence, compassion and balance. Furthermore, they capture the extraordinary transformation of one man who held the power of life and death in his hands.

9 July 2006 (Sunday)
2 - 5 pm
Possibility Room (5th level), National Library (100 Victoria Street)
Free Admission!

Post-show discussion guest speakers:

* Professor Michael Hor (Faculty of Law, NUS)
* Associate Professor Lim Chin Leng (Faculty of Law, NUS)
* Dr Mark Nowacki (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, SMU)

(Yes, I know it's late. But better late than never?)

Deadline - official page

SFS mailer

If you read the mailer, you'd see that we have another documentary + discussion lined up for you on 21st July, this time on the UN. Our guest speaker is veteran diplomat Mr Kishore Mahbubani, who was Singapore's representative to the UN.

Remember, keep that feedback coming!

Yet Another Cyberpunk Movie: "The Gene Generation"

The Gene Generation is apparently the first Hollywood film to be directed by a Singaporean.

Kudos to Pearry Reginald Teo (a.k.a. Zhang Pingli), but did it really have to be yet another cyberpunk film? It wasn't long ago that we had to endure Kuo Jian Hong's Avatar. At least the distributors spared us a commercial run.

Is this a trend we're starting to see here? Singapore = cyberpunk? It's too easy - fun, even - to invent similarities between the current state of affairs here and the dystopic, high-tech urban environments jammed with alienated people that are cyberpunk cliché.

Ok, maybe I'm pre-judging. Maybe I'm too cynical. It's not out yet, so maybe this will be a great film. Maybe this is The One to pump new life into a flaccid genre that saw its epitome in Mamoru Oshii's sublime Ghost in the Shell.

I'm not hopeful, but maybe there'll be nice shots of Bai Ling at least.

The Gene Generation official site.

The director's got her own blog.

Wikipedia entry.

Combichrist's music video for "Get Your Body Beat", for The Gene Generation. Combichrist is a techno-industrial rock band. (Yes, another cyberpunk cliché.) Watch out for the usual profanities and lots of people with painted faces and bad haircuts trying really, really hard to look angry.

Did "Superman Returns" bring back good memories for you?

(from Scott Kurtz's excellent webcomic PvP Online)

Wine and Gitmo: Core Screening on 5/7

TV footage and reenactment quickly become indistinguishable from each other in Michael Winterbottom and Matt Whitecross's The Road to Guantanamo. The prolonged physical and mental ordeal of the Tipton Three is sobering stuff, and the directors wisely chose not to overdramatise the material. I particularly like how the movie is an almost seamless blend of acting, TV video footage and interviews.

The Road to Guantanamo

SGFilm thread

IMDB page

Official home

Indiewire feature

Wednesday's core screening had that extra touch of class, thanks to Robin (that's him on the left with a drained bottle of Israeli wine). He's one of the co-owners of D’Vine Stienberg Pte Ltd, and was kind enough to sponsor some wines for a little pre-screening gathering open to all our members. As an extra (extra) treat, 50 lucky namecard-droppers will get a complimentary bottle of wine. So Robin’s earned lots of good SFS karma, and we're helping him out a bit. That’s D’Vine Stienberg Pte Ltd, and you can email him at invizion at yahoo dot com, or call 9673 5601.

(Hey Robin, if you’re reading this, you know which card's mine right?)

btw, the other movie for Wednesday's core screening was Robin Williams's bland vehicle R.V. -- the choice was obvious.

"Singapore Cinema" & Wee Li-lin's "Holiday" at Alliance Francaise

Catherine Tan looks very good on the cover of Raphael Millet's book on the history of Singapore Cinema titled, well, Singapore Cinema. But I'm not sure I would've chosen a still from Ong Lay Jinn's meandering Perth in the first place. To me, it's not that significant a Singapore film.

(Perth at Cine.SG. It's screening again from July 5th onwards, so you can catch it and decide for yourself.)

The book is more chronology than analysis, and so the coffee table format is well-suited to this book. I'm a bit annoyed 'cos it's awkward to carry, but there're lots of photographs and Millet's clearly done his research.

Anyway, if you're free this Friday night and in the area:

Presentation of Singapore Cinema
at the Alliance Francaise de Singapour,
Sarkies Road (near Newton MRT)
Date: 7th July 2006, Friday
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: AF Theatre (Free Admission)
Programme: Brief presentation of Singapore Cinema by Raphael Millet.
Screening of Singaporean short movie: Holiday, in the presence of the director, Ms Wee Li-lin.
Followed by a signing session of Singapore Cinema.

Wee Li-lin's Holiday, starring the versatile Adrian Pang, details the confusion of a recently-retrenched man. Sprinkled with black humour, and worth watching even if you don't stay for the book signing.

For SFS folks! Special mail order forms for "Singapore Cinema", which offer an SFS-only 15% discount on the book, are available from SFS.

Farewell to my Capitol

Let's take a minute or two to remember the grand old dame of Singapore cinemas – the Capitol.

(The Capitol on Cinema Treasures)

There’s a feature on the Capitol cinema in today's Sunday Times (No links because The Straits Times has in place an anachronistic policy of locking every article behind a subscription. Perfect way to make yourself irrelevant online.) For those of you outside Singapore, or just too young to remember, the Capitol was a major cinema with much nostalgic value in the memories of many (slightly older) Singaporeans. It's still a key landmark here, right in the city centre.

(Photos, circa 2001)

Unfortunately, nostalgia alone doesn't count for much here. The article talks about the derelict state the Capitol has fallen into since its closure in 1998, after the invasion of multiplexes. Everything's rotting away or falling into disrepair due to neglect. This is painful to think about when you recall its history as a premier cinema here, with lavish (for its time) interiors. I was particularly impressed by the large representation of the zodiac on the auditorium ceiling, less so by the stylised wall-mounted sculptures of horses and riders on either side of the screen – all relics from an era when going to the movies was an experience.

No-one seems to want to take over the Capitol. Old buildings are very expensive to maintain, and when you add that to the exorbitant restoration and refurbishment costs, it becomes hard to justify why anyone would want to take over the building.

Should the Government do it? It’s easy to point at the authorities, but that doesn’t answer the real question: "What will we do with the Capitol?" It may not be completely right for the authorities to do nothing, but what are the alternatives?

SFS at the Picturehouse: "Respire", "Rain Dogs" & Q&A with Ho Yuhang

1 July 2006 marked the SFS's first event at Cathay's resurrected The Picturehouse. I couldn't think of a better place to screen Saturday's lineup btw. Cathay-Keris's heritage is rooted in Malayan, then Malaysian and Singaporean, film, and Cathay in Singapore was one of the first commercial operators to screen non-mainstream stuff. But all that's for another post.

First was Ho Wi-ding's short film Respire. This won Best Short Film during International Critic's Week at Cannes in 2005.

(Interview with Ho at All Malaysia.info: Masking Triumph)

Next was an exclusive screening of the rough-cut of Ho Yuhang's latest film Rain Dogs. Funded by Focus Films as part of its First Cuts program.

Ho Wi-ding couldn't make it for the Q&A afterwards, so Ho Yuhang had the mike to himself.


If you haven't met Ho, he's a very affable person. No airs at all, down-to-earth in his speech and demeanor.

-- The editor for Rain Dogs is Liao Ching-Sung, who edited Hou Hsiao-Hsien's early work.

-- He's most comfortable writing about what he's personally experienced in his life so far. That's why all his stories have been set in Malaysia. But he's also spent some time in Iowa, so he's not ruling out a story set there.

Cinema Online on Rain Dogs

Focus Films: Rain Dogs