Sinema Showoff! My Singapore (A National Day Special)5 min read
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn conjunction with National Day celebrations, Sinema Showoff! team brings a selection of short local films that mirror tales of curiosity and hopes of immigrants past and present. The series is curated by Singapore Polytechnic.
Sinema Showoff! My Singapore (A National Day Special) will be held on Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 7.30pm at Sinema Old School (11B Mount Sophia, B1-12, Singapore 228466). Admission is free! Book tickets here
All directors will be in attendance for a Q&A session following the screening, except TICKETS’s Sherman Ong who will be away at PhotoIreland. He will be represented by FILEM’s Kent Chan who was co-incidently the Editor for TICKETS. The moderator for the Q&A session will be Dr Nina Dimitriadou, Post Doctoral Fellow, School of Design & Media, Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
We encourage prior reservation of seats as the screenings usually run full-house. You may do so here
SINEMA SHOWOFF! MY SINGAPORE (A NATIONAL DAY SPECIAL)
1. WATCHING PAN
Ho Rui An | English| 25 mins| PG
Sun Li is a Chinese migrant who is emotionally estranged from her family. She obsessively tails and watches a strange, enigmatic girl whom she barely knows. On the eve of her return to China, a chance encounter leads her into the world that was previously only seen from a distance.
Previous Screenings
Official Selection, Kashish-Mumbai International Queer Film Festival 2011, India Official Selection, Singapore Short Film Awards 2011
Director’s Bio – Ho Rui An
Ho Rui recently completed his National Service (NS) and is preparing to pursue a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Fine Art & History of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London.
2. FILEM
Kent Chan | Mandarin | 10 mins | PG
A film crew sets out to film a historic epic, but the lack of funds sees them having a less than desirable cast of locals and foreign-talent.
Previous Screenings
Official Selection – Focus Asia – Asian Hot Shots Berlin 2010, Germany Official Selection – Life Scenes, Singapore Short Film Festival 2010 Official Selection, Singapore Short Film Awards 2011
Director’s Bio – Kent Chan
Kent graduated from Lasalle, College of the Arts in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Film. Prior to that he had graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma in Multimedia Technology.
Kent interned three (3) months at Venice Biennale 2009. He currently freelances in the local industry in various production roles.
3. TICKETS
Sherman Ong | Mandarin | 10 mins | PG
This film centres on Xiao Jing, a ticket seller in an old cinema in Singapore. Coming from China to study acting in Singapore, the young lady has her hopes set on breaking into the Singapore film industry as an actress.
Previous Screenings
Rotterdam International Film Festival 2010, Netherlands (World Premiere) Montreal World Film Festival 2010, Canada Hawaii International Film Festival 2010, USA S-Express Singapore, Singapore Short Film Festival 2010
Director’s Bio – Sherman Ong
Sherman is a filmmaker, photographer and visual artist.
Winner of the 2010 ICON de Martell Cordon Bleu Photography Award, Sherman has premiered works in Art Biennales, major Film Festivals and Museums around the world, including the Venice, Singapore and Jakarta Biennales, Mori Art Museum Tokyo, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, Musee du Quai Branly Paris, Centre Pompidou Paris, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Queensland Art Gallery and South Australia Contemporary Art Centre to name a few.
He is an Associate Artist of the Substation and a founding member of 13 Little Pictures, a film collective based in Singapore. In 2009, he was invited to participate in the Singapore Pavilion, Venice Biennale which garnered a Special Mention. His works are in the collections of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum and the Seoul Art Centre Korea.
Sherman is a Malaysian and a Singapore PR. He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) (Hons.) from National University Singapore (NUS).
4. MRS SANTHA BHASKAR
Tara Tan | English | 3 mins | PG
A documentary on classical Indian dancer, Santha Bhaskar, 70, who came to Singapore in 1955. The artistic director of Bhaskar’s Arts Academy pioneered the local traditional Indian dance scene and is a recipient of the Cultural Medallion award, the Republic’s highest accolade for artists.
Commissioned specially for the Singapore Pavillion at World Expo 2010 Shanghai.
Previous Screenings
Official Selection, Singapore Short Film Awards 2011
Director’s Bio – Tara Tan
Tara Tan is a former arts journalist and dance critic with The Straits Times and is currently a copywriter with boutique creative agency 10AM Communications. She graduated from the University of Bristol, UK, where she earned first class (Hons) in Drama: Theatre, Film and Television.
5. LABOUR DAY (CURATOR’S PICK)
He Shuming | Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese & English | 26 mins| PG
Cik visits her old flat to collect rent from her two foreign worker tenants who are on their way to work – Zoe, a frumpy 30-year-old Malaysian Chinese whose second application to be a Singapore citizen has just been rejected, and Purple, a study-mama from China, who is hiding a secret from her 12-year-old son.
Supported by Singapore Film Commission (SFC).
Previous Screenings
Official Selection, Singapore Short Film Awards 2011
Director’s Bio – He Shuming
He Shuming graduated from The Puttnam School of Film, LASALLE College of The Arts, majoring in Film Directing and minoring in Screenwriting.
Shuming has also done art direction for Boo Junfeng (TANJONG RHU) and Royston Tan (881 & ANNIVERSARY).
He has to date written and directed four short (4) films. His other short film NATIONAL DAY was one of the films featured recently in the Sinema Showoff! Class of 2010 DVD commissioned by Ministry of Information Communications and the Arts (MICA) for Singapore Day in Shanghai.
Shuming is currently freelancing as a director and editor.
Total running time: 74 mins
