Andrew Currie Online

Since I didn’t see any familiar faces at yesterday’s Toronto-Singapore Film Festival (and really didn’t expect to), I’m doing my cinematic duty with a quick report on the films I saw:

Drama Program

• Café, directed by Kelvin Sng
  • Cultures collide in a late-night café, and the Japanese guy watching the proceedings seems to get it all wrong. The audience loveed the character with the heavy Singlish accent.
• Parcel, directed by Lu Lu Yang
  • A young postman is haunted by a violent childhood memory. The package that he carries around turns out to be empty. I didn’t get it.
• Strings, directed by Jon Lim
  • A creepy take on the ties that bind, and easily the audience favourite of the afternoon. More than a bit derivative of Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge but hey, why mess with the classics?
• More Than Words, directed by Kelvin Sng
  • A bitter-sweet gangster romance, set in the ‘70s. Kudos to the costume designer for the bell-bottom pants and platform shoes!

Documentary Program

• Past Tense, directed by Mirabelle Ang
  • A lyrical piece on the narrator’s return to the lion state. A bit too arty for me.
• Singapore Rebel, directed by Martyn See
  • Profiling Dr. Chee Soon Juan‘s ongoing attempts to bring true democracy to Singapore. Pretty disheartening that the government basically bankrupted this guy out of running for office…
• Singapore Ga Ga, directed by Pin Pin Tan
  • Due to technical difficulties we only saw the first few minutes of this film, a look into Singapore’s more colourful local characters. Too bad. It looked very promising.

During the intermission between the two programs the audience was treated a free indigenous buffet—but sadly, no durian.

My sincere thanks and congratulations to Yeow-Tong Chia and all the volunteers who made this event happen. I’d say it was a big success!

(A platter of Singapore Slings served up at the famous Raffles Hotel…)

Apologies for this very last minute heads-up, but if anyone’s interested there’s a Singapore Short Film Festival happening this afternoon at Innis Town Hall. It starts at 12:45pm, so you still have a couple of hours to make it there!