SOLD OUT - PROJECT: slingSHORT

PROJECT: slingSHORT Curator's Notes

I hope you enjoy the selection of short films in this edition of PROJECT: slingSHORT.

They deal with subject matters that are close to Singapore shorts: family, relationship, innocence lost and societal suppression.

They have traveled to Venice, Berlin, Rotterdam, Oberhausen…… Singapore shorts have truly gained wider visibility in the international film festival circuits.

They are made by filmmakers who have developed from making shorts to features -- Ho Tzu Nyen, Boo Junfeng, Sanif Olek.

They are also made by film students: Kirsten Tan (NYU Tisch), Tan Shijie (Tisch Asia), He Shuming (LaSalle) & Tan Wei Keong (NTU). They are the up-and-coming talents who bring new inputs to our creative scene.

I hope Singapore films will get better & better with your support in recognizing film is an art of expression.

Eva Tang
PROJECT: slingSHORT curator


Screening selection:
National Day by He Shuming
à la folie (like crazy) by Sanif Olek
For Two by Tan Shijie

Reflections by Ho Tzu Nyen
Hush Baby by Tan Wei Keong
Sink by Kirsten Tan
Tanjong Rhu by Boo Junfeng

Click here for film synopsis.

National Day selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

National Day / 19min / HD / 2009
by He Shuming

He Shuming is currently a Final Year Directing Major at The Puttnam School of Film, LASALLE College of The Arts. 'National Day' is his 2nd short film after 'Visiting', which closed the inaurugal SMU Film Festival. He is currently writing his thesis short film.

Director's Statement:
National Day is a short film about how a Hainanese family in Singapore cope with the sense of loss and grief.

Human relationships always make for good stories, even more so within a family. This is a study of these relationships; the generational gap divided by dialects and languages, the subtle dichotomy in personal beliefs and ulitmately the blood that binds these people together as a family.

National Day is also a keen observation of how one deals with emotions within family and in their own private space. This is an attempt to portray the honest inner workings of an ordinary Singaporean family.

Film Synopsis:
Wei has finally collected enough National Day Parade tickets for his whole family. But National Day happens to coincide with the 7th day after his father's sudden death. The family foregoes the Parade to observe a traditional family custom - waiting for the father's soul to return home before its final journey into the afterlife.

à la folie (like crazy) selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

à la folie (like crazy) / 11mins 30sec / Digibeta /2008
by Sanif Olek

Sanif Olek / à la folie (like crazy)
Sanif graduated from Singapore’s premier film school, The Department of Film, Sound & Video at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 1996. In 2001, he continued his film studies at the School of Media, Communication & Culture at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, gaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Media.

Sanif’s capacity as a content creator and director has consistently earned him numerous awards in television. In his previous works, Sanif demonstrated a capacity to excite his audiences with humor and move them with melancholia. His unique perspective makes his work more insightful and informative.

Beyond television Sanif is also making his mark as a filmmaker. He is in-production for his debut film feature, "The Missing Ingredient". Visit www.reeljuice.net for details.

Filmography:
Lost Sole | LOVE trilogy #1 (short film).
à la folie “like crazy” | LOVE trilogy #2 (short film)
Ameen | LOVE trilogy #3 (short film; post-production)
Ramuan Rahasia “The Missing Ingredient” (feature film debut, 2010; in-production)

Award: Best Short Film @ 4th Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival 2009
(NETPAC – Network For the Promotion of Asian Cinema)

Director's Statement:
à la folie “like crazy”, is a simple story of love, manipulation and revenge that was inspired by the classical Ramayana text. It was produced from my desire for a less structured filmmaking style. I had just completed 6 months of shoot for a television drama series, a process of which was largely structured by the needs of commercial television and scripted narrative. For the cathartic experience, I chose to deconstruct the Ramayana - the greatest love story ever told - and jazz it up with rock-and-roll. With just a concept, a camera and no script, I devised with my actors over 2 nights. Furthermore, I’ve always wanted to work in a filming process where I can be intimate with my actors. In tune with the origins of the original text, ‘Little India’ at Serangoon Road in Singapore, became the set-up for this improvisation.

Film Synopsis:
Sinta and Arjuna, a pair of lovers, reunite after a period of break-up. Back together, Sinta confides in Arjuna her time with Rawana and a big showdown ensues in this post-modern re-interpretation of the classic Ramayana.

SHOWCASE: Suhui Hee

Suhui Hee loves concise, engaging visuals, and strives to demonstrate that love in her work.

She is currently enjoying the BA Graphic Design course in Central Saint Martin’s. Previously she has slaved away 6 years doing science while doing H2 and H3 AEP (Art Elective Programme) in Hwa Chong Institution. She has also attended Rhode Island School of Design’s Pre-college Program whilst trying to sort out her newfound feelings for design.

She describes herself as versatile and a quick learner, and believes that there is no hard and fast rule to anything.

Name: Suhui Hee
Location: London, UK
Website: NA
Contact: click here

D.A.ACTIVIST collection Opening Night

Fresh from their Hong Kong exhibition, the D.A.ACTIVIST collection by fashion designer, Lilia Yip and print artist Mona Choo opened in London on the 11th February.

Opening night saw a steady flow of visitors coming to peruse and touch the clothes, listen to the collection soundtrack while snacking on some Singapore snacks.
Everyone had a favourite piece of clothing and a favourite snack (green pea, broad bean or the orange rectangular one that doesn't have a name).
Taking its starting point from a photograph by Finnish photographer Jan Kaila of the beautiful eccentric Mr. Elis Sinistö, wearing a life-size rectangular board round his neck - like a man wearing a work of art. D.A.ACTIVIST is a womenswear collection of artwork on clothing cut to freeform rectangular shapes, made within an ethical practice.

The exhibition runs till the 28th February at :
Austin Gallery
119a Bethnal Green Road (opposite Brick Lane), London E2 7DG
Opening times : Mon-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun till 10.30pm

Er Ren (For Two) selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

Er Ren (For Two) / 17min / Digi Video / 2009
by Tan Shijie

Born 1981 in Singapore, Shijie read Philosophy at the city-state’s National University before going on to make films in 2007. He was awarded a national film scholarship to pursue his cinematic interests in 2008, and now is an M.F.A. candidate in Graduate Film Production at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Asia, in Singapore.

『二人』is a film made in his first year at Tisch Asia.

Director's Statement:
The idea for the film came when I read a news article that reported a strange incident: a homeless woman was found to have lived in a man’s apartment with him, in secret, for a year! This situation I found metaphorically truthful of the fragility of human relationships. Relationships that are based on illusions of each other and of ourselves. This is the crux of the story, inspired by this situation; what I have endeavored to do with the film, is to depict the resulting fragility aesthetically.

Film Synopsis:
A lonely widower lives a quiet existence, still longing for his deceased wife. Within his sparse apartment inhabits a furtive woman, who does not meet him face-to-face yet participates in a life “together” with him – eating his food and taking care of the house when he is gone. When the fragile reality of this life “together” threatens to become too real for either to take, both Man and Woman must react. Inspired by true events, For Two is a story about relationships and the illusions of them.

Uniquely Singapore? brainstorm

Creative [SIN]ergy will be participating in this year's London Festival of Architecture. The current working title for this project is "Uniquely Singapore? The Generic City". This brainstorm meeting was conducted by Creative [SIN]ergy member Calvin Chua, which was held on Saturday 13th February 2010 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture.

Currently the project will take place in 3 forms:
Website: This website will consist of 6 types of spaces for the (global) public to respond to. It will form the background for the project discussion and exhibition.

Exhibition: This will be a "milestone" exhibition in Jun 2010 which will consist of photos of the 6 types of spaces produced by a group of architects / architectural groups in both Singapore and London, where each pair (one Singapore, one London) will address one of the spatial types. Similar to the Crystal Chain Letters group, the run up to this exhibition will involve the exchanges of texts and photographs between the two participants as a form of dialogue on the spaces. This will culminate into them select 4 key images to exhibit in the exhibition, together with a publication on their letters and photograph exchanges.

Further Project Development: The website and exhibition will collectively form a pool of information for us to tap into to construct a project based on the issues raised through the photographs. These issues are by no means solely an architectural one, they can be or should be extrapolated into addressing larger social political issues in Singapore, as spaces are by default means of governance.

Reflection selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

Reflection /14min / HD / 2007
by Ho Tzu Nyen

In 2009, Ho Tzu Nyen’s first feature film, HERE, premiered at the 41st Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival (2009), while his medium-length film, EARTH, was presented at the 66th Venice International Film Festival (2009). His award-winning short films have been shown at international film festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Jeonju International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Bangkok International Film Festival and Seattle International Film Festival.

Tzu Nyen is also an artist whose works traverse the fields of the visual and performing arts. He has participated in significant international visual arts exhibitions including the 26th Sao Paulo Biennale (2004), the 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2005), the 1st Singapore Biennale (2006) and the Dojima River Biennale (2009). His next visual art project is an adaptation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical fiction, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which will premiere at the upcoming 6th Asia-Pacific Triennale (2009). His performing arts projects include the critically-acclaimed The King Lear Project (2008), a co-commission by the KunstenFestivaldesArts in Brussels and the Singapore Arts Festival, which Tzu Nyen conceptualised, wrote and co-directed.

He is currently working on his second feature film, Endless Day.

Director's Statement:
Reflections was written by Lafcadio Hearn as a fairytale for children. But like the best fairytales, it speaks most profoundly to the world of adults. Hence this little story about the inability of man to see beyond one’s own reflections is at once a powerful allegory about the eternal differences between man and woman, as well as a powerful critique of the myopia of ideology.

Film Synopsis:
Based on a story by the 19th Century Greek writer Lafcadio Hearn, who settled in Japan as Koizumi Yakumo, this film is a parable about how man is a creature that perpetually cannot see beyond his own reflection.

SHOWCASE: Clara Yee

Clara Yee is a student of the universe first year stuck forever a quest for knowledge. She was awarded the Shooting Gallery Prize, Best Illustration Student in Temasek Polytechnic (Visual Communication) and is current a Graphic Design student at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

She had two collaborative exhibitions in Singapore and a wall mural in a paper factory. Illustration is the love of her life and she has had an internship at Alexandra McQueen illustrating prints. She is not fickle-minded, she just has a nettlesome habit of seeing virtue in every argument.

Clara is also the 642th dwarf planet discovered to orbit the sun.

Name: Clara Yee

Location: London, UK

Website: www.642clara.blogspot.com

Contact: Click here

Hush Baby selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

Hush Baby / 4min / Digital Betacam /2009
by Tan Wei Keong

Born in 1984 in Singapore, Wei Keong’s first animated short film White was awarded Special Achievement Award at the 20th Singapore International Film Festival. Wei Keong graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Animation at Nanyang Technological University. Hush Baby, awarded Special Mention at the 22nd Singapore International Film Festival, marks his second animated short film effort.

Director's Statement:
Hush Baby aims to capture life’s ‘innocence’ from its beginning and traces its struggle for liberation.

Since infancy, all of us have been told what actions are right and wrong; what is acceptable and not. Under this institutionalised, perhaps suppressive, discipline, we exist according to rules and restrictions.

The film portrays the interaction between an inquisitive character and a dominant being that, like a parent, means well, but whose concern manifests itself as manipulation. However, life can perhaps be more beautiful beyond the wall of protocol.

Film Synopsis:
A curious baby is protected from an environment of temptation.

Sink selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

Sink / 10min 42 sec / 16mm / 2009
by Kirsten Tan

Kirsten is a refugee from Southeast Asia – more precisely, from middle-class Singapore, a tiny island lying smack on the Equator marked by a heady mix of relentless summer, an insistent ubiquitous rash of shopping malls, and Asian groupthink, which, amongst other notable attributes, continues to classify filmmakers as… exotic. Despite this, Singapore’s national broadsheet, The Straits Times, has exhorted Kirsten as a ‘rising film director to look out for’ and her work has been screened in over 20 film festivals around the world, garnering several international prizes and awards, including the “National Prize” at the Kodak Film Awards in 2005, the “Special Jury Prize” and the title of “Best Director” at the Singapore International Film Festivals of 2006 and 2007, the “Best Concept” award at the Czech Republic’s Brno Sixteen Festivals of 2006 and 2007, and most recently, a “Special Mention for Direction” at the 2008 Asian Film Symposium. She is now based in Brooklyn, New York, where she is pursuing a Masters in Film Production at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.

Director's Statement:
I first saw in my head an image of a sink sitting in the middle of an ocean. Since I was going through a period of loss at that point, I wove a theme around that image and expressed it in the form of a relationship between a boy and a sink.

Film Synopsis:
A sink sitting in the low tides. A boy playing by the beach. A chance meeting. “Sink” is a distilled exploration of innocence and experience, love and loss; an intimation of what might lie beyond.

Tanjong Rhu selected for PROJECT: slingSHORT

Tanjong Rhu / 18 min / HD /2009
by Boo Junfeng

Boo Junfeng is one of the most prolific short film makers from Singapore in recent years. Since 2005, his films have received several awards at the Singapore International Film Festival, including all four of the main accolades: Best Film, Best Director, Special Jury Prize and Special Achievement Award.

He graduated from the Puttnam School of Film at Lasalle College of the Arts, where he was accorded the McNally Award for Excellence in the Arts – the valedictorian honour of the college. He is currently working on his feature-length debut with Zhao Wei Films, a production company helmed by acclaimed Singaporean director-producer Eric Khoo. The film project – SANDCASTLE – has been selected for the Pusan Promotion Plan 2008 and slated for production in late-2009.

Director's Statement:
This film is a work of fiction that seeks to bring to light a watershed incident that has been forgotten by many today, merely 15 years since its occurrence. While intrigued by the events that took place, I was cautious about turning it into a politically charged polemic.

By rooting the event in the personal narratives of my lead characters, I sought to humanise the episode and explore a more romantic dimension of the cruising area – one with casuarinas trees, silhouettes and a forlorn seascape where men sought furtive encounters.

Film Synopsis:
A former military officer seeks closure by making a documentary film about a man whom he had furtively encountered in Tanjong Rhu many years ago.

Tanjong Rhu is a secluded beach on the east coast of Singapore, and a popular cruising ground for gay men. In an entrapment exercise in 1993, 12 men were arrested there and sentenced to imprisonment and caning. This is a fictionalised account of what has happened since then to one of these men.

London opening of D.A.ACTIVIST

London opening of D.A.ACTIVIST

Thursday 11th Febuary
6.30 - 11.00 pm
Austin Gallery, 119a Bethnal Green Road, London E2 7DG

The exhibition will continue 12th - 28th Feb
Mon-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun till 10.30pm

D.A.ACTIVIST is a womenswear collection by Lilia Yip and Mona Choo. The collection features artwork on clothes cut to free-form rectangular patterns, made with an ethical and sustainable practice.

In this exhibition, art and fashion combine to ask questions about human life: how we live, what impact do we have on the environment and other living beings. A subtle and intimate form of design and art activism, which is the antithesis yet silent accomplice of the emotional barrage that overloads the urban human today. This touring exhibition made its debut in Hong Kong in November 2009

Personal orders are welcome.
Click here to preview the collection with its soundtrack.

Creative [SIN]ergy member's gathering

Members of Creative [SIN]ergy meet up for an informal gathering on Saturday 6th February at the Photographers' Gallery.

Creative [SIN]ergy part of the London Festival of Architecture

PROJECT: slingSHORT tickets now open for booking

Creative [SIN]ergy
presents
PROJECT: slingSHORT
Curated by Eva Tang

Friday 26th February 2010
6.30 - 9.30pm

The Singapore High Commission in London
9 Wilton Crescent, Belgravia, London SW1X 8SP

Admission: £8.00 per ticket (advance online purchase ONLY)
£10.00 per ticket (at the door)
(ticket includes complimentary buffet and beverages)

Order your tickets by contacting Brian Tan at 07930378922
Or email info@creativesinergy.com

All proceeds to PROJECT: slingSHORT will be donated to the substation.

PROJECT: slingSHORT is supported by :
Overseas Singapore Unit
Singapore High Commission in London
Mindlab

The programme:
6.30pm Registration/ Complementary Buffet Dinner
7.30pm Screening Begins
8.30pm Interval
8.45pm Screening (part 2)
9.30pm Ends

Total screening time is about: 90min

Screening selection:
National Day by He Shuming
à la folie (like crazy) by Sanif Olek
For Two by Tan Shijie

Reflections by Ho Tzu Nyen
Hush Baby by Tan Wei Keong
Sink by Kirsten Tan
Tanjong Rhu by Boo Junfeng

Click here for film synopsis.