Discoveries from Singapore World Cinema

A young man questions the meaning of family duty when he is thrust into the violent rift between his father and brother.

An intimate journey into the lives of three men, three Singapore actors, as they share, revealingly, their personal lives. An exploration into the realm of human drama, comedy and emotions... Personas, unmasked. Three men. Three lives. Three actors. Three stories.

An eccentric screenwriter, oblivious to the misogynistic nature of his script is given an ultimatum by a feminist film producer.

A film that deals with very relevant issues in our everyday lives, Hashi centres on 3 women from 3 age groups - Shino(50s), Junko(30s) and Momo(20s). Momo is a bento (box lunch) delivery girl who sends bento lunches to Shino and Junko, who are colleagues in an office. Momo would always tell her dreams to Shino or Junko. One day Shino gets a call from an ex-boyfriend whom she has not met for 30 years. Junko has doubts about her relationship with her boyfriend. Their 3 lives cross and diverge in oblique and tangential ways. As the story weaves around issues of love, relationships, insecurity, death and the blurring between dreams and reality, the men in their lives are always present but hardly seen or heard.

When the wrong body has been sent for cremation, a hapless funeral director has to make amends to the deceased's estranged children. As he devises a plan for a sham funeral, the children's hypocrisy and apathy begin to surface.

The film is a Malay film which was published in Malaysia in 1955. Films issued in the form of black and white film without color. The directed by director A.M. Basker in 1955 .

The film sketches the lives and tribulations of some of those kids the college girl on summer break, the boys from the neighbouring province who only want to do hip-hop and through them we get a real glimpse of what makes Shanghai today a promising big city.

Through Zipeng’s eyes, Purple Light strives to tell a story about how one’s existence is bigger than their sexuality, and that no form of love should bear a label. Purple light is inspired by a true account.

This documentary examines the values, philosophies and ideas that defined his leadership.

My Father After Dinner follows an old security guard and his emotional journey in anticipating the return of his married daughter and her family for dinner.

‘65 year old Mdm Tan lives alone in Sin Ming. One day, the local authorities came to catch the free-ranging chickens in a bid to curb their population. Shocked, Mdm Tan decides to do something radical: to catch as many chickens as she can and put inside her flat to save them temporarily.

Jack and Jill went up a hill to get a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, Jill broke out in laughter.

A television switches on. A mind snaps. A man discovers his murdered wife. As he stares at her lifeless body, the events leading to her death play before him, like in a movie. HERE follows the journey of He Zhiyuan, a middle-aged man who struggles to make sense of his reality. Reeling from the sudden death of his wife, he loses the will to speak and is interned at Island Hospital. There, he meets strident kleptomaniac Beatrice with whom he forms an inexplicable bond. As He adjusts to life within, he is selected for an experimental treatment, which forces him to confront the devastating truth behind his past, present, and future. Meanwhile, a filmmaker visits Island Hospital to document the lives of the staff and patients.

A retired civil servant in Singapore resorts to desperate measures to prevent his house’s demolition for a new train line.

Kai brings Min to a clinic after he tests positive for herpes. With the looming shadow of Kai’s infidelity, Min is forced to face her fears.

Three generations of women—doting grandmother, harried mother and innocent daughter—negotiate interdependence as well as differing priorities and desires in this restrained observational drama.

Chi-Lun, 27 years-old, loves trains. He is on the autistic spectrum. Studying maps and videos of transport systems in operation, he is well-versed in the transport routes of Taiwan. He, his sister and father are making plans for a train trip to Hualien after the easing of the pandemic. With a set destination in mind, he has to try to convince them. During the trip, his expressions are as fleeting as the view outside of the train window.

A single lady meeting a butcher and discovering her tiny world expanding.

A woman who has to single-handedly raise a young daughter and suffer abuse from a drunk husband, finds solace in watching television and drumming up elaborate fantasies. Her compulsive television viewing habit escalates until the day her husband brutally smashes her dreams of a glamorous life and she descends into madness.

Five unlikely characters form a film company to achieve their individual dreams. Arvind, a metrosexual male, who gets inspired to be a great filmmaker starts forming his team. There's the childhood friend Shruthi, the James Cameron wannabe Walter, the ruthless dictator Thanes, the village playwright Kaly and the suspicious crew boys and the bimbotic receptionist Sarah. Clueless about filmmaking this team of misfits attempt one of the many childhood dreams of Singaporean directors: producing a film. Will Arvind be able to overcome the odds and make his dream movie or would it all just be his ultimate nightmare?

Distressed by the number of cases of an unknown disease, a doctor meets a French journalist. The ensuing epidemic resulting in them both being isolated together.

Told in the tune of a Chinese fable, four friends go back to their alma mater for a wedding photo shoot, when memories of a horrific past, beats back on them through hallucinations and whispers from beyond the reality.

"When I first started to photograph in dark and unfamiliar places all over Singapore in 2003, I had no idea that those images I made would come to define me as a photographer. Born out of a curiosity of the unknown, as well as a young photographer’s restlessness, While You Were Sleeping grew to say as much about our country as it did of me. Eighteen years, two books and two exhibitions later, Singapore is now a very different place. Many of the locations I visited in the early 2000s, once alien, are now completely transformed." – Darren Soh, photographer

An Asian mother accidentally discovers her daughter's sexuality and she struggles to accept her for who she is.

When three friends spot a part-time job offer online, they decide to apply for it. What happens next forms the rest of the story.

In 1960s’ Singapore Chinatown, hard-boiled detective Lee Kian Hock is hired by Mrs Chan to look into her millionaire husband’s extramarital affair. But when he finds Mr Chan murdered in a seedy hotel room and meets his enigmatic daughter, Michelle, a web of lies, intrigue and betrayal begins to unravel as each of the characters pursues their own agendas ruthlessly, in search of love and money.

The Drum is a short film that follows the journey of Kang, a recently retired man in his 60s dealing with the sudden onset of a late-life crisis. He realises that he must mend old conflicts and learn to accept his new life or risk losing himself in the emptiness of old age.

A man, spurred by a cloud, must now make a series of apologies.

A young Singaporean woman, haunted by a dark past and teenage pregnancy, has to regain her mother's trust in her rehabilitation as she reassumes custody of her young child.

A poetic recount of a nameless girl's experience with grief and loss as she come to terms with the passing of her mother, to her mother.

Guohui and Peiling were childhood sweethearts who met again after years of being apart and became a couple. On an idyllic island south of Singapore, they spend their last moments together as their relationship falls apart. The film is about the impossibility to know what has made people change. Through the ever-changing landscape, Guohui and Peiling realise that what is transitory is also eternal.

Bowen, a Singaporean teenager studying in an American boarding school is visited by her traditional parents and younger sister. While the visit includes the anticipated Annual Fall Dinner at her boarding school, it is evident that they may not have left on the best of terms; the tension is piercing. The dramatic central question: is Bowen able to reconcile the differences between their values and her affirming self-discoveries.

Chris Ho (X'Ho), a veteran Singaporean DJ known for his acerbic wit and tattoos, travels to China for the first time to reflect on his Chinese roots. In the process, he reflects on his homeland, Singapore.

Hock Hiap Leong pays tribute to this a 55-year old coffee shop on Armenian Street that has been an incessant inspiration to many people. The urban re-development board’s demolishing plans in 2001 inspired the filmmaker to capture this epitaph of history.

As Jenny and her mother wait for a taxi to the airport, tension rises over Jenny’s forgetfulness, sparking another argument. Frustration mounts - until a call from Jenny’s grandmother shifts the dynamic. Forced to return home together, they share a quiet moment of realisation. Hierarchy explores the cyclical nature of familial expectations, the flaws that connect generations, and the inevitability of seeing ourselves in those who raise us.

Boreak was six when he lost his right arm in a landmine accident in Cambodia. His parents sent him to a home in Siem Reap for young landmine victims. The home is run by Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who is haunted by his violent past and hopes to make amends by helping remove the millions of landmines still buried in his country. Aki Ra’s Boys, the second feature documentary by filmmakers James Leong and Lynn Lee, premiered at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2007. It screened at the Yamagata Internation

If the world doesn’t accept you and your kind, trailblaze a world that does. Inspired by the Black and Latinx underground Ballroom culture of New York, Sun, Teddy, and Xyza create Ballroom communities in Southeast Asia as safe havens from homophobia, transphobia, color discrimination and HIV stigma.

18 Paths. 18 Exposures. 18 Frames per second. A peek into the old Singapore through the doors of the new.

Repurposing and manipulating classic film footage and the filmmaker’s personal footage, the film weaves a phantasmagoric narrative of a Chinese lady named Ma Li who dreams she is a Caucasian named Mary.

A man enters a passage and must choose to embrace either the persistence of time or the will of nature. Through improvised movement and choreography, this short film is a playful meditation on the body, space, and the present moment. The film was shot as part of Cinemovement Laboratory VI: Solo in Studio Plesungan, an art space run by Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo in the northern part of Solo, Indonesia.

Jamilah, a singer of a traveling troupe is a strong-minded woman who has no desire for marriage. Umar, a poverty-stricken man, trespasses her room one night with the intention to steal. Unable to escape in time when Jamilah and her colleague Ismail return home, Umar pretends to be Jamilah’s estranged husband, much to her bewilderment. Umar confesses his dire circumstances to Jamilah, and she takes pity on him. A romantic friendship develops between the titular penchuri (thief) and the film’s heroine.

The name is a combination of the two words Happy and App. The authors of the film try to imagine the phenomenon of social chaos, when people see the source of their happiness in social networks. Using the # sign means that the audience and the author of this film share this opinion. In the media, popularity is measured by the number of "clicks". Therefore, many so-called celebrities do ridiculous and radical things to attract the attention of the audience. The plot is based on several real stories that occurred on the Internet.

This film has a certain distiction of its own - it is the first to be written and directed by a Malay, Nas Achnas, a well known Singapore Malay artist. Starring Ismail Kassim and Nona Asiah, noted radio and record singer, the film is about a Malay who runs away from his kampong in order to avoid forcible marriage to his cousin. - The Straits Times, 8 Apr 1951

A neglected wife finds hope in a friendly stranger, a single mother finds love in the most unfortunate of places, and a shy young wallflower gets a little closer to knowing what she wants by trying what she doesn't. A collection of five tender stories that show us, no matter where you are, Love is Never Far.

Two men meet on a birthday evening, each knowing far too much about the other. What begins as a return to an old love quickly turns into an emotional rollercoaster, where past grievances and still‑burning feelings fight for the final word.

1954 / Nafsu / Temptation / L. Krishnan / Keris [f]

Choose your story in HIGH, the new interactive short film by Royston Tan.

Film Life Lara is a malay film which was published in Singapore when it was part of Malaysia in 1952. The movie Lara Jiwa published in the form of black and white film without color . Lara Jiwa film directed by S. Ramanathan director in 1952. In this film Neng Yatimah play as a wife that been direspectful by his husband that cheat behind her back.

Meet the Riversiders and the Wildlings, two very different otter families growing up in one of the busiest islands in the world: Singapore. Join them and discover their endless adventures in the ultimate Otter city.

A newspaper editor visits her former teacher, who now cares for his wife with dementia, in this gentle story about the passage of time.

Mat has always dreamt of becoming a secret agent since he was young. After accidentally finding and consuming an elixir that grants indestructibility, he gets his wish when he is hired to retrieve a briefcase that contains these elixir pills. With a motley crew on his tail, Mat realises that leading a spy’s life like James Bond is harder than he imagined.

Two amateur filmmakers with lofty ambitions take part in their university's short film challenge together, but tensions and vulnerabilities arise when both insist on directing.

There was once a prosperous kingdom under the sea, where mermaids lived happily, until the fairies raised them to the surface. That was when the mermaid Hlaine was captured, kept in a tank within a museum, forced to perform tricks for the fairies' entertainment. As centuries passed, the mermaids raised to the surface grew legs and learnt to live among fairies. Mae, a young girl on an overnight school trip to the museum meets Hlaine and becomes enamoured with mermaid culture. Might this be Hlaine's chance to return home?

The earthworm is a tunnel with openings on each end where the Earth is consumed and excreted. Shot in the tunnel of the now defunct KTM railway – the tracks that once connected Singapore and Malaysia, Wormhole is a penetrating meditation on Man and orifices.

A fan ruminates on its existence, that of a man who collects sounds from objects, and climbing temperatures in this idiosyncratic film.

17-year-old Jason's world shifts when his estranged grandma moves in, disrupting his routine as he undergoes a journey of transformation.

With nowhere to turn, a pregnant student finds refuge and companionship with a gynecologist, who is mourning the death of her only daughter.

After Hou Yao moved to Singapore in 1940, he continued to work for the Shaw Brothers under Malay Film Productions and made a handful of films, including such films as Bermadu and Ibu Tiri, before being murdered in 1942.

A young man reliving his life by travelling through time only to realise the answer has always been with him all along.

Apparently in production in 1942, production of this film was cancelled due to the Second World War when the Japanese occupied Singapore. Fortunately, production was resumed after the war.