Portraits and Screenings Adorn Singapore International Film Festival’s 30th Anniversary Celebration4 min read
Reading Time: 3 minutes10 local film and media personalities showcase their self-portraits and creative journey from 18 October to 1 December 2019. Moonlight Cinema, a free public outdoor cinema series by the Festival, returns from 25 to 27 October 2019 with stories of youths and their indomitable spirit.
Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) has gathered 10 local film and media personalities to share their self-portraits inspired by nature, as it celebrates 30 editions of championing local storytellers and their creative narratives.
Alongside this mixed media exhibition at Gardens by the Bay, the Festival will also host its sophomore edition of Moonlight Cinema over three days in October, where the audience can enjoy free outdoor movie screenings that spotlight the youths and their fearless dreams. Held in partnership with Gardens by the Bay Youths Celebrate!, these on-screen and off-screen programmes continue the Festival’s mandate as a discovery ground for stories of Singapore, the region, and beyond.
Pushing creative boundaries with Nature’s Playground
Titled Nature’s Playground and held from 18 October to 1 December 2019 at the Colonnade (Supertree Grove) in Gardens by the Bay, the exhibition invites visitors to follow 10 local storytellers, including media personalities Fiona Xie and Anita Kapoor, alongside filmmaker Kirsten Tan, on their creative journeys inspired by the natural environment around Singapore.
In sharing their self-portraits amidst nature around us, the storytellers will collectively explore what it means to be an artist who tells personal stories centred in the region.
SGIFF Executive Director Yuni Hadi said, “Singapore International Film Festival has been a platform to experience the world and personal stories through the cinema. As the Festival grows, we continue to embrace and support the myriad of mediums our storytellers use to express their ideas, including innovative, multi-disciplinary, mixed media presentations. As part of our 30th anniversary, we are celebrating our Singapore talents and their journey of expression.
In Nature’s Playground, we are invited into their creative journeys and share in their experiment of narrative expression that nature has sparked in them. We would like to thank these local personalities, who have been making waves in their creative storytelling through film, theatre, music, visual art and literary, for their support towards the Festival and our initiatives.”
Embrace the energy from youth at Moonlight Cinema
A hit among festival-goers last year, the Moonlight Cinema series will return to the Supertree Grove Lawn at Gardens by the Bay from 25 to 27 October with three films featuring youths and dreams-chasing journeys. Friends and families can cosy up under the stars and enjoy the screenings over an array of food options available. This is also in conjunction with Gardens by the Bay Youths Celebrate!.
Film-lovers can look forward to American comedy-drama, Empire Records,which follows a tight-knit group of young employees (starring Hollywood stars such as Liv Tyler and Renée Zellweger) who worked together to save their independent record store from being sold to a large chain, and critically-acclaimed French film, The Chorus,that explores the journey of a music teacher who discovers the musical promise of an aimless child in a boarding school. On the third night, award-winning Indian musical drama Secret Superstar will also be screened, featuring a teenage girl who lives amid domestic abuse and becomes a YouTube sensation after a video in which she hides her identity goes viral.
Yuni added, “Cinema provides a window into the world we live in. Through the Moonlight Cinema series this year, we aim to inspire film-lovers and a wider audience with the universal themes of youths and their infectious never-give-up spirit. This is similarly a reflection of the grit and tenacity of our filmmakers in pursuing their dreams of telling our region’s tales. We hope more people will be encouraged to support independent cinema from Asia and the world that are closely relatable to our everyday lives.”
The 30th SGIFF will run from 21 November to 1 December 2019. Its call for entries for Feature and Short Films, Southeast Asian Film Lab, and Youth Jury & Critics Programme is now open and will continue till 19 August 2019.
SGIFF is an event of the Singapore Media Festival (SMF), hosted by Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA). SGIFF 2019’s Official Sponsors include Official Red Carpet Venue Capitol Theatre; Official Automobile BMW; and Official Hotel Shangri-La Hotel Singapore.
For more information, please visit the official website here.
