Tan Pin Pin's new feature In Time To Come up for Best International Documentary in Switzerland

In Time To Come by Singaporean film-maker Tan Pin Pin will premiere in Switzerland next month. PHOTO: TAN PIN PIN/FACEBOOK

Singapore film-maker Tan Pin Pin will premiere a new documentary, In Time To Come, in Switzerland next month.

Her work, about the the opening and sealing of two time capsules, will screen at the Visions du Reel festival in Nyon, Switzerland, where it has been nominated in the Best International Documentary category. It was selected from more than 3,000 submissions.

In an e-mail interview, Ms Tan, 47,  says: "Time capsules embody man's desire to contain the past, present and future, all in one object.

"So time capsules are very similar to films in their ability to reference multiple time dimensions simultaneously. I am fascinated by this."

Her new film, she adds, is a travelogue and does not contain interviews. It was shot over four years and was conceived before her last full-length documentary, To Singapore, With Love (2013) was made.

To Singapore, With Love featured nine political exiles talking about leaving Singapore and what the country means to them today.

In 2014, it was given a rare Not Allowed For All Ratings (NAR) classification by the Media Development Authority.  The reason given was that Tan's sympathetic portrayal of the exiles allegedly legitimises violence and subversion in politics.

She says of the new work: "Though this film is more contemplative, I don't see it as any less political in so far as any representation is political. Anyway, I am glad it is completed and screening widely in four festivals, and competing for Best International Documentary at three of them."

From Nyon, the film will tour festivals in Toronto, Canada; Sao Paolo, Brazil; and New York, the United States. 

There is a Singapore release planned for the second half of this year (2017).

The 62-minute work is Ms Tan's fourth full-length documentary. She also contributed the short film Pineapple Town to the omnibus 7 Letters (2015).

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