News

By Goh Ming Siu

Fade up on a mountain of rocks in a quarry — raw material for construction, for literal nation-building, yet mining also destabilizes the land. The shot tracks along, as we hear a distant rumble – is it a storm on the horizon, far-off construction, or something more ominous? The camera comes to rest on an empty frame. The protagonist, Lim Cheng Soon (Peter Yu) and his brother Cheng Boon (Johnson Choo) rise from below, where they’ve been digging for rocks, up into frame.

An opening that encapsulates a film where everything important is operating under the surface, a film that needs one to excavate it for a meaningful experience. Hemingway-esque in its sparseness but also in its hidden richness and depth, much like the films of Edward Yang. We think we know what’s going to happen, because we’re familiar with the tropes. Yet at every turn,...

Haunted By Recurring Apparitions, A Young Girl Embarks On A Supernatural Journey To A Tsunami-ravaged Japan In Search Of Her Mother In This Poignant Drama About Love And Loss

The New Director's Award-nominee At San Sebastian Makes Its North American Premiere On SVOD Service Indiepix Unlimited On September 13, 2024

Synopsis

Haunted by recurring apparitions, sixteen-year-old Ami (Mihaya Shirata) embarks on a supernatural journey from Singapore to Japan in search of her mother who went missing during a cataclysmic tsunami. Upon her arrival in Tokyo, she meets Isamu (Masatoshi Nagase), her cynical taxi-driving uncle, who becomes her custodian and reluctant guide through the ravaged landscape and her family's dark past.

Set against the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami and shot mostly in Rikuzentakata, a city almost wiped out during the tsunami, Last Shadow At First Light is a “post-apocalyptic story of survivors' trauma” (The Film Verdict) that reckons with lingering family trauma.

After wrapping its inaugural edition, the Ho Chi Minh Film Festival (Hiff) has set its sights on becoming the largest film festival in Southeast Asia.

Showcasing more than 100 films over eight days, the festival received over 280,000 visitors, including international guests, over eight days earlier this month (April 6-13).

Industry professionals present at the festival told Deadline that they were impressed by the scale and ambition of the festival, which included a script lab, workshop and project market and a “content and tech expo” focusing on new media and emerging technologies.

“It can be said to be a success, although there are still a few things we could have done better if we had more time to prepare,” Hiff Executive Director Pham Minh Toan told Deadline. “We are happy because most of the international friends who attended responded positively — what happened in Ho Chi Minh City over the eight days exceeded...

Filipino director Sheron Dayoc’s The Gospel Of The Beast won the top Golden Star Award for best Southeast Asian film at the first Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (Hiff) in Vietnam, which also saw several titles dropped from the final programme due to censorship by local authorities.

The Gospel Of The Beast marks the first feature in seven years from Dayoc and tells the story of a teenage boy who accidentally kills his classmate and runs away with an older man he barely knows, forming a unique father-son relationship. It premiered at Tokyo in October.

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Storm Warning

“Stormy,” a documentary about former porn star Stormy Daniels, has been picked up by Blue Ant Studios for international distribution.

The launch was announced on Monday, the same day that former U.S. president Donald Trump begins a criminal trial in New York for allegedly covering up hush money payments to Daniels.

“Stormy,” offered as two one-hour episodes or a two-hour feature, is produced by Emmy-nominated producers Erin Lee Carr and producer-director, Sarah Gibson (“Orgasm Inc: The Story of One Taste”) who previously made the documentary, “Britney vs. Spears.”

The film is executive produced by Judd Apatow of Apatow Productions alongside Sara Bernstein and Meredith Kaulfers from Imagine Documentaries. Emelia Brown also serves as producer. “Stormy” is currently streaming on Peacock in the U.S.

Hcm Prizes

“The Gospel of the Beast,” directed by Sheron Dayoc, was named winner of the Golden Star Award for best Southeast Asian...

The Gospel Of The Beast, directed by the Philippines’ Sheron Dayoc, picked up the Golden Star Award for Best Southeast Asian Film at the first edition of the Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (Hiff) in Vietnam.

Nicole Midori Woodford’s Singapore-Japan collaboration, Last Shadow At First Light, won multiple awards in the festival’s Southeast Asia competition, including the Jury Prize, best cinematography (Hideho Urata), best screenplay (Nicole Midori Woodford) and best visual effects (Laokoon VFX).

Oasis Of Now, directed by Malaysia’s Chee Sum Chia, took awards for best director and best actress for Vietnam’s Tạ Thị Dịu, who plays an immigrant in the film. Singaporean drama Wonderland won awards for best actor (Mark Lee) and best supporting actor (Peter Yu), while best supporting actress to Rawipa Srisanguan for Thailand’s Solids By The Seashore.

Indonesian action drama 13 Bombs was awarded with best sound design...

Malaysia-Singapore-Taiwan co-production Snow in Midsummer and Swedish title Sons took top prizes in the Young Cinema Competition at the 48th Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff).

Winners of the festival’s 15 Firebird Awards and Fipresci Prize were announced at an awards gala held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.

Directed by Malaysian filmmaker Chong Keat-aun, Snow in Midsummer was named Best Film (Chinese Language) in the Young Cinema Competition, with the jury commending the director for “demonstrating extraordinary courage in recounting the traumatic experiences of Malaysian travelling players.”

The feature revolves around a Cantonese street opera troupe during a turbulent period in Malaysia’s political history in the late 1960s. Cast includes Wan Fang, Pearlly Chua, Rexen Cheng, Pauline Tan, Peter Yu and Alvin Wong.

Other winners in the Chinese-language category included the Best Director award for Chinese filmmaker Liang Ming for his film Carefree Days, while the film’s female lead,...

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Lee Chang-dong, Terence Davies, Shōhei Imamura, Bi Gan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villleneuve, Céline Sciamma, Guillermo del Toro, Kelly Reichardt. Those are just a few of the filmmakers introduced to New York audiences at New Directors/New Films over the last half-century across over 1,100 premieres.

Now returning for its 53rd edition at Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art from April 3-14, this year’s lineup features 35 new films, presenting prizewinners from Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo, and Sundance film festivals. Ahead of the festival kicking off next week, we’ve gathered fourteen films to see, and one can explore the full lineup and schedule here.

All, or Nothing at All (Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang)

In All, or Nothing at all, director Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang employs an experimental...

By Goh Ming Siu

Fade up on a mountain of rocks in a quarry — raw material for construction, for literal nation-building, yet mining also destabilizes the land. The shot tracks along, as we hear a distant rumble – is it a storm on the horizon, far-off construction, or something more ominous? The camera comes to rest on an empty frame. The protagonist, Lim Cheng Soon (Peter Yu) and his brother Cheng Boon (Johnson Choo) rise from below, where they've been digging for rocks, up into frame.

An opening that encapsulates a film where everything important is operating under the surface, a film that needs one to excavate it for a meaningful experience. Hemingway-esque in its sparseness but also in its hidden richness and depth, much like the films of Edward Yang. We think we know what's going to happen, because we're familiar with the tropes. Yet at every turn, we're...

Chai Yee-Wei’s “Wonderland” comes to the Singapore International Film Festival after debuting at the San Diego Asian Film Festival where it won the audience award.

Chai’s credits include “Blood Ties” (2009), “Twisted” (2011) and “That Girl in Pinafore” (2013), which premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival. “Wonderland” is his fifth feature. He is the founder of Singaporean post-production house Mocha Chai Laboratories.

Set in 1980s Singapore, “Wonderland” follows two middle-aged fathers – Loke, who owns a joss paper shop and lives with his daughter Eileen, and Tan, a lonely church pianist and recovering alcoholic-gambler. They become friends after Loke sells his house to fund Eileen’s studies abroad and moves next to Tan. Filled with regrets over his own estranged daughter, Tan offers to translate and transcribe the illiterate Loke’s correspondences with Eileen. When Tan learns about a tragedy, he constructs an elaborate lie to protect Loke from the truth.

Prolific Singaporean filmmaker Kelvin Tong’s latest feature “A Year Of No Significance,” which has its world premiere at the 34th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff), mourns the loss of a generation.

Set in Singapore in 1979, the film chronicles the gradual disintegration of a middle-aged architect as changes rock the 45th year of his life. Sidelined in the office because of his inability to speak English, Lim Cheng Soon is cut further adrift when his wife inexplicably leaves him. His elderly father moves in, forcing him to confront the fact that the former has always preferred his younger brother. Robbed of his identities as architect, husband and son, Cheng Soon struggles in the dusk of his life.

The cast includes Peter Yu, Tan Tiow Im, Mandy Chen and Naomi Yeo. Tong made his feature debut with “Eating Air” and has made several features since, including “Love Story” (2006), which won best director at the 19th Sgiff.

Combining comedy with melodrama in a film about middle-age fatherhood is not exactly an easy feat to undertake, but it is exactly what Chai Yee Wei chose to do for his first feature after ten years and ”That Girl in Pinafore”.

Wonderland is screening at Singapore International Film Festival

Set in 1980's Singapore, the movie revolves around Loke, a single father who is trying to ensure the best future possible for his only daughter Eileen, through his incense-selling shop. When Eileen gets a scholarship to study in the US, Loke lies to her that he has enough savings to sustain her life there, and eventually proceeds into selling his house to help her financially. At the same time, though, she also lies to him about her life there, and the fact that she has to work part-time in order to survive. Loke eventually meets Tan after moving to a cramped apartment next to him,...

Singaporean writer-director Nicole Midori Woodford is on a roll with her debut feature, Last Shadow At First Light, which premiered in New Directors at San Sebastian film festival and has two nominations at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSAs) for best screenplay and best performance (Mihaya Shirata).

Filmed in Singapore and Japan, the film follows a Singaporean teenage girl with a special connection to the spiritual world who goes on a road trip to uncover the mystery of her Japanese mother’s supposed death. She has been told her mother died by suicide during the recovery effort following the Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed her maternal grandparents. But she doesn’t believe this to be true.

Meeting up with an uncle in Tokyo, they travel together to a town that was swept away by the tsunami although her uncle is more interested in the local pachinko parlour than helping with the quest.

In her feature debut, director Nicole Midori Woodford explores the aftermath of an apocalyptic event and examines how trauma leaves an indelible mark on its survivors that ripple onto close family relationships. Crafting evocative atmospheres and elemental textures as metaphors for hauntings, hallucinations and dreams, the director delicately weaves the supernatural and the lyrical into a coming-of-age road trip of a teenager yearning to uncover the reason for her mother’s vanishing in Japan. Starring the acclaimed Masatoshi Nagase, Mariko Tsutsui, Peter Yu, and newcomer Mihaya Shirata.

A first trailer has been unveiled for Nicole Midori Woodford’s feature debut “Last Shadow at First Light,” which world premieres at the New Directors strand of the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The film is in competition for the New Directors Award. Starring acclaimed Japanese actor Nagase Masatoshi (“Sweet Bean”) and newcomer Shirata Mihaya, the film follows a teenage girl (Shirata) with a special ability to communicate with the spiritual world as she goes on a road trip from Singapore to Japan. On arrival, she is chaperoned by a cynical uncle (Nagase) to uncover the mystery of her strange dreams and her mother’s disappearance years ago. Tsutsui Mariko, Peter Yu (“A Land Imagined”) feature in supporting roles.

The feature is presented by Jeremy Chua’s Potocol (Singapore), Shozo Ichiyama’s Fourier Films (Japan), Studio Virc (Slovenia) and Happy Infinite Productions (Philippines), executive produced by Jermyn Wong and Sally Ng...

Nelson Yeo is a Singaporean filmmaker. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in digital filmmaking from Nanyang Technological University, he participated in Berlinale Talents Tokyo in 2014 and took part at the Locarno Filmmakers Academy in 2018. His film, Mary, Mary, So Contrary (2019), won Best Experimental Short at Golden Ger International Film Festival. Here is Not There (2020) was awarded Best Asean Short Film at Bangkok Asean Film Festival and Best Singapore Short Film at Sgiff. Recently, Plastic Sonata (2022) won CathayPlay Best Chinese Short Film at SeaShorts Film Festival. “Dreaming and Dying” is his feature debut, a Singaporean-Indonesian co-production.

Dreaming and Dying is screening in Locarno Film Festival

The title derives from zuì shēng mèng sǐ, a Chinese idiom which means leading a befuddled life as if drunk or in a dream and the overall aesthetics of the movie definitely mirror the phrase. The story begins with three middle aged friends,...

As the title may suggest, Nelson Yeo’s Locarno title “Dreaming & Dying” is driven by multiple transgressions and surprises. Identities, between humans, fish, and frogs, fluctuate and morph. Dreams and nightmares come together – to blend harmoniously or combust.

Singapore’s landscape proves a fertile ground for plumbing the depths of fantasies and repressed desires, which is just what Yeo offers in his 77-minute debut.

Screening in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente, the film loosely revolves around the story of three friends in their fifties, played by Peter Yu, Kelvin Ho, and Doreen Toh, who reunite after years apart. Sparks ignite and the three find themselves in a conflicting love triangle. As they wrestle with their feelings and come to terms with the choices they’ve made, supernatural occurrences start to take place around them. The boundaries between dream-states and wakefulness blur as the characters’ surroundings shift to reflect their psychic states.

Pulling into the station this weekend in Singapore is J.D. Chua‘s monster movie Circle Line, which is notable for being the first big creature feature to come out of Singapore.

“The film features what is said to be a big mutant lizard/rat hybrid monster,” Bloody Disgusting has been told, and that monster is glimpsed on the official poster you’ll find below.

The monster in the movie was designed by Victor Marin, and you can also see bits and pieces of it in the previously released trailer and first clip that you’ll also find down below.

In the film, “Trapped in the underground train tunnel system, a single mother’s resolve to protect her son is tested to the extreme as both of them are the few remaining survivors of an attack by a monster. Meanwhile in the control room, duty engineers fight desperately to rescue the trapped survivors.

Pulling into the station on January 5, 2023 over in Singapore is J.D. Chua‘s monster movie Circle Line, which is notable for being the first big creature feature to come out of Singapore.

“The film features what is said to be a big mutant lizard/rat hybrid monster,” Bloody Disgusting has been told, and the official trailer for Circle Line has just been unleashed this week.

The monster in the movie was designed by Victor Marin, and bits and pieces of it are on display in this first trailer. It looks like we’ll have to wait for a full creature reveal, however.

In the film, “Trapped in the underground train tunnel system, a single mother’s resolve to protect her son is tested to the extreme as both of them are the few remaining survivors of an attack by a monster. Meanwhile in the control room, duty engineers fight desperately to rescue the trapped survivors.

Marks the second film from award-winning director Chong Keat Aun

Chong Keat Aun’s upcoming drama Snow In Midsummer has wrapped shooting in Malaysia and is set to be launched by Swallow Wings Film at Busan’s Asian Contents and Film Market (Acfm) in October.

The film is a Malaysia-Singapore-Taiwan co-production and marks the director’s second feature after The Story of Southern Islet, for which he won best new director at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards in 2020.

It also marks the latest regional collaboration among a new wave of Southeast Asian films made with the support of government funding bodies.

Production has wrapped in both Singapore and Japan on Nicole Midori Woodford’s supernatural art house drama “Last Shadow at First Light.” It stars Nagase Masatoshi, Tsutsui Mariko, Peter Yu (“A Land Imagined”) and newcomer Shirata Mihaya.

The story examines the intangible nature of trauma and the ripples of its aftermath through 16-year-old Ami (Shirata) who is haunted by visions.

“This is a film borne out of darkness and loss, of a family’s frailties, set in both Singapore and Japan. Shooting between two countries, I hope to capture the diverse mise-en-scene from the urban cities to the vast transformed landscapes my characters are lost within. It has been incredible to work with my actors amidst such poignant terrain.”

A large part of the filming took place in and around the city of Rikuzentakata in Japan, an area significantly affected by the tsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011.

Upon the discovery...

“The Diam Diam Era Too,” the sequel to current release “The Diam Diam Era” by Singapore superstar Jack Neo, and period thriller “Precious is the Night” are among the upcoming releases from regional mini-conglomerate MM2 Entertainment.

The company revealed a host of titles for 2020-21 release at the ongoing Asian Television Forum, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival.

The “Diam Diam” films continue the story of Neo’s 2016 two-parter “Long Long Time Ago” that followed the Lim family against the backdrop of Singapore’s nation-building policies. “The Diam Diam Era Too” is set for a Lunar New Year release in early 2021. The cast includes Richie Koh, Danny Lee and Mark Lee.

Wayne Peng’s “Precious Is The Night” is a thriller set in 1960s Singapore, starring model-photographer Chuando Tan as a doctor caught in a web of deceit, sex and lies. The Golden Horse nominated film also stars Nanyeli,...

Over about 27 years, the Vancouver International Film Festival's "Gateway" section (previously the "Dragons and Tigers" competition) has developed a reputation as one of the most notable selections of East Asian films outside of Asia. With long-standing relationships with directors such as Jia Zhangke and Hong Sang-soo (going back to before either were international festival mainstays), the section started in 1989 as a series titled "Cinema of the Pacific Rim," and has long since been notable within Viff's larger international programming. Previously helmed by film critic and scholar Tony Rayns (who retired from his role in 2016), the section is now mainly curated by film critics Shelly Kraicer and Maggie Lee. And while diminished in volume in comparison to previous years, the 2018 edition does still offer a chance for directors who may otherwise get lost in the festival shuffle to make their mark apart from internationally-lauded selections such as Ash Is Purest White,...

A jaded cop in Singapore investigates the disappearance of a Chinese construction worker in Yeo Siew Hua’s predictable noir “A Land Imagined.” Set in the city’s underbelly and shot almost entirely at night, the film privileges style over coherence, indulging in pointless time shifts and giving short shrift to too many characters. Any discussion of the quasi-slave-like situation for most of the country’s external laborers is important, and Yeo adds some good lines about how the city-state is literally built from foreign soil, yet “Land” will feel overly familiar to those looking for more than well-intentioned musings on the horrendous treatment of guest workers. Locarno’s jury clearly thought otherwise by giving it their top prize, but it’s hard to imagine the movie going beyond the usual indie festival destinations.

Much of Singapore’s industrial coastline is made from reclaimed land, covered with rigs and looking...

Cooked with a broth of a few too many ideas, A Land Imagined is a so-close-to-being-great Singapore neo-noir that does all the right things, but simply does too many of them in its snappy 95-minute running time. Only his second feature, Singapore-born writer-director Yeo Siew Hua was awarded the Gold Leopard in Locarno for his enigmatic new film.

His story tells of a detective who arrives on a land reclamation site to investigate how and why one of the workers disappeared. What Yeo presents is remarkable for its style and ambition but also for its scattered folly, a world of Lynchian dreams and techno-surrealism that somehow echoes both Chinatown and Wong Kar-wai. It’s also a tale buckling at the knees under all that symbolism and with at least one too many loose ends left dangling.

The opening act promises much. Thrusting an unsure foot into Yeo’s alluring world is detective Lok,...