Discoveries from Singapore World Cinema

A young man buys fake drugs from a fake drug dealer and pretends to take them

Three geeky Junior College graduates find themselves on the brink of change with National Service starting the next day. Fearing that they have not experienced anything noteworthy in their entire lives, they create a list of daring and perilous tasks to complete by the end of the night, setting out to prove to each other their preparedness for the challenges of military life.

After the success of Pontianak, Balakrishna Narayana Rao (B. N. Rao) directed and released a sequel to his horror film – Dendam Pontianak. It came out in the same year as Pontianak, and Menado reprised her role in this sequel.

In Tokyo, a young man, Tomo, and his companion, Hiroko, have hardly any money left to their name. Convinced that their misfortune is part of a larger, unexplainable joke, they agree to throw themselves into all the encounters that come their way with the singular hope of defeating this joke before it plays out.

"this video was made in 2001 after 9-11. it was my first essay video."

For selfish and petty gains, the village head enlists the help of the medicine man to conjure a toyol (child spirit) for him to own. However, the medicine man constantly fails in his concoctions. They hear rumours of Mat possessing the ability to conjure toyols and decide to take advantage of him, recruiting Mat as the medicine man’s assistant to do the hard work. Meanwhile, the medicine man’s wife who is frustrated with her husband’s failures, leaves home to reclaim a dark heritage of her own. As Mat seeks the secret ingredient for the concoction, he experiences hysterical encounters with the world of black magic, witches, talking animals and dancing skeletons.

19-year-old Anne adjusts to driving her Dad’s car, while struggling with whether to keep the family secret of his terminal illness from Grandma.

A pregnant woman sews a baby suit. “May God forgive her sins” says her grandfather, tearing apart the baby garment. She should pay for her wrongdoings with her life.

When two close friends are approached to sell drugs by a stranger, one of them agrees and the other one disagrees. How their choice has made an impact on their lives forms the rest of the story, discussing about how one’s choice about drugs can make a huge difference in one’s life

Live With Peace

A young European actress has just arrived in Singapore and already wants to leave it. The promise of a new world of opportunities has faded away and only left the falseness of the modern Asian cities. The wise taxi driver who is bringing her away will show her how beautiful Singapore can be.

In Old Hollywood, a woman's reality distorts, transforming the once familiar landscape of a jazz bar into a nightmarish realm where time warps, voices shift, and the leering men morph into an otherworldly horror.

The film begins with a woman reflecting about her role as a person and as a mother. Her love and the sacrifices she has made for her children are evident and she has many happy memories of her time spent with them.

A laundry cleaner named Wonton falls for a prostitute.

Between the opening and sealing of two time capsules in Singapore lives a city in limbo, visited by its own past, present and future.

Singapore GaGa is a 55-minute paean to the quirkiness of the Singaporean aural landscape. It reveals Singapore's past and present with a delight and humour that makes it a necessary film for all Singaporeans. We hear buskers, street vendors, school cheerleaders sing hymns to themselves and to their communities. From these vocabularies (including Arabic, Latin, Hainanese), a sense of what it might mean to be a modern Singaporean emerges. This is Singapore's first documentary to have a cinema release. With English and Chinese subtitles.

What would an outcast do to be accepted by the mainstream? Would it be mimicking appearances, or perhaps imitating language? Maybe even helping to cover up a murder, just to gain the slightest chance to be heard? However, what if, despite all these efforts, she is still rejected? – Xige Yi

The film captures a Singaporean zeitgeist in stop-motion sequences of impressionistic pencil drawings. Over 1,000 handdrawn portraits of real-life MRT commuters were used to create a tapestry of faces that eventually metamorphoses into a singular face as the short film provides a multi-dimensional gaze on a Singaporean identity.

Manikandan who is desperately in search of money to settle his debts finds a $1000 note. What happens next forms the rest of the story

Zheng Yi Sao (née Shi), forced into piracy prostitution, married Zheng Yi, co-ruling pirates with ruthless efficiency. After his 1807 death, she led the Red Banner Fleet, adopting Western tech to resist foreign invaders, becoming a legendary anti-colonial heroine in Qing China’s decline. All visual representations in this production are 100% generated by artificial intelligence (AIGC).

Comfort is a personal journey to discover the psyche of the director’s father and the nature of his job. The director explores the trials and tribulations that his father faces on a daily basis, including aspirations for his family's future and for himself .

Set in a haunted restaurant outside time, a ghostly host serves four unforgettable horror stories, each centered around a legendary Chinese dish. From a murdered stepdaughter’s spectral revenge with egg fried rice to a cursed fishing village bound by blood and tang yuan during winter solstice, the anthology weaves a dark tapestry of generational sin and ancestral reckoning.

Capturing life through the lens of a dream, Albert explores the evocation of the subconscious mind through the vivid visualism and dynamism of images.

After Hou Yao moved to Singapore in 1940, he continued to work for the Shaw Brothers and made a handful of films, including Mutiara, before being murdered in 1942.

1956 / Azan / The Hand of God / L. Krishnan / Keris

Decades have passed since the Orang Pulau, or Island People, have moved from Pulau Sudong, Pulau Tekong and Pulau Ubin to the mainland to make way for national urban development. With the last batch of original Orang Pulau greying, what does the future hold for these indigenous people of Singapore?

Raja Sahari / King For A Day / B. S. Rajhans / Malay Film Productions

In a dystopian future, there are no credit cards. Your bank account status is monitored through retinal scans. A broken man discovers a women hooked up to a life support machine which requires credits to keep her alive. To gain more credits he must kill people and take their eyes. As he searches the city for victims he followed by a mysterious women. Finally he collects enough eye balls to cure the women in the bed. Just as she awakens the mysterious female bolts into the room and a bloody ending is in the result.

Virgin Kumar is a tamil film Written & Directed By Shailesh Nathan

In Before the Wedlock House, the bride allows filmmaker Liao Jiekai to follow her in close lengths documenting her pre-dawn conversations with her make-up artist and the early birds in her wedding entourage. In conversational chapters, we learn about the relationships between her, the filmmaker and the greater environment that surrounds them.

Fakkah Fuzz goes by Fadzri Rashid on comedy specials

Kota, a city in North-West India famous for its coaching institutions, attracts more than 200,000 teenagers from all across the country to prepare for the undergraduate competitive exams. These students reside in cubicle sized hostel rooms and study for more than 15 hours a day for two consecutive years to crack the entrance exams for prestigious colleges that has acceptance rate of less than one percent. These students face intense insurmountable pressure from coaching institutes, peers and their families which not everyone is equipped to cope with, resulting in some students taking the extreme step of suicide.

A homesick son studying abroad calls home to Singapore, having an unspoken longing for home.

After the death of his wife, a taxi driver, Hoon, struggles to provide for himself and his daughter, Mei, during the COVID-19 pandemic. He chooses to turn his taxi into a mobile brothel so he can give his daughter a better life. One life-changing moment forces him to re-consider his choice.

Jula Juli Bintang Tiga is a fairyland princess who married a king. King Dhasyahalan when the Shah was sworn in secret Jula Juli Bintang Tiga uncovered cause he disappeared and left a baby boy, Prince Baharum Shah.

An animated documentary about the relevance of Shakespeare's classical works for digital natives in Singapore: Live action and animation combined. The film was created in close collaboration with the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Alana Daud invites her teenage daughter to be familiar about the cultural legacy of kebaya.

A spirited cancer survivor goes on a spontaneous search for 'The Berlin Patient' - the first man in the world actually cured of HIV.

A Singapore Army conscript discovers his fellow soldiers turned into zombies. He escapes from camp. He discovers the zombie virus is quickly spreading and so teams up with a ragtag team of survivors in order to escape from Singapore.

Ah Jin, a university student from Liangshan and part of the Yi minority group, embarks on a journey to visit her separated parents and discovers what she wants to do after school.

Singapore film production directed by S. Ramanathan.

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 Bermadu and Hanchor Hati, before being murdered in 1942.

Is scoring top in class more important than having compassion? In a harsh environment called school, the top 3 students in the class are tasked to help their classmate Nina improve her exam score. The trio discovers that the upcoming test could be her final exam in school.

Truong Minh Qúy’s found footage film brings together multiple scenes depicting soldier’s deaths in Vietnamese propaganda films, revealing aesthetic patterns that speak to a nationalist agenda while hinting at a broader value system within Vietnamese society.

Pei Ling is forced to take on the full duties of caring for her newborn after her mother’s disappearance. Struggling with her identity as a young mother, she finds ways to cope with the burden of abandonment and single parenthood.

Returning home from her mother's (Ah Ma) funeral, Ling is startled by her daughter's (Hui Xuan) claims that Ah Ma has visited Hui Xuan in a dream the prior night, and also that a stray and stationary moth on their dining table might be the reincarnation of Ah Ma. Unable to reconcile her beliefs and grief, Ling tries to force and persuade Hui Xuan to conform, to which her daughter resists adamantly. In a fit of anger, Ling attempts to kill the moth to win the argument but hesitates when the moth lands next to the cross on the door.

Starring Richie Koh, Julie Tan, Andie Chen and Noah Yap, this action-adventure work tells the story of five young people who possess feng shui powers that can defend Singapore from dark forces.

03-FLATS follows the domestic experiences of three single women who are at different stages of their lives. It records how domestic resilience might resist the ennui of mass housing, turning housing into home.

My grandmother's migration between the Riau Islands and Singapore becomes intertwined with the mutable story of a spider spirit.

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.

Arjuna is a film which was published in Malaysia in 1954. The film Arjuna published in the form of black and white film without color.

A one minute short film showcasing the sights, sounds, and people that characterizes Singapore's nightlife.

The Chinese custom for bridesmaids, or "sisters", is to playfully impede the groom's progress as he comes to fetch his bride on the wedding day. Things take on an unexpected turn when a cheeky relative at the wedding volunteers to take on the role of a bridesmaid.

A poignant reflection of the power of memory and the rush of emotions accompanying the recollection of past experiences. A classroom once filled with vibrant energy is now hollow and lifeless as Jian revisits the classroom where he met his childhood sweetheart.

In the summer of 2025 of the ‘new normal era’, where gravity changes are the norm, an unlikely bond forms between a film nerd and a dancer as they contend with strange gravity powers. Shot entirely in a vertical frame, New Normal is a dystopian look at Singapore through a sci-fi fantasy lens.

This is an experimental film that explores the pain and suffering in the world caused by a lack of understanding amongst mankind. All of this is viewed through the "eyes" of the people of the world.

Donna Ong is an installation artist, best known for her evocative and thought-provoking and often complex environments made from furniture, found objects and original artwork.

Amid the noisy spectacle of Singapore’s golden jubilee celebrations in 2015, filmmakers Chew Chia Shao Min and Joant Úbeda conduct casual interviews with people from different walks of life, each with their own set of values and beliefs. The subjects share deeply personal stories and their perspectives on issues such as religion, race, identity and mortality. Unhurried interviews are interspersed with highly recognisable local scenes, and at times punctuated with serendipitous poetic moments.