He has also been in prison.

'I was arrested for rioting. I was in a gang fight,' he says in a matter-of-fact voice. Now a student at ITE College East, the soft-spoken student, Rezza to his friends, worked on The Days under a scheme that encourages school staff to take paid leave to work on movies.

Students like him can then participate in the shoot during their school holidays, gaining experience and contacts otherwise denied them.

He is open about his three years in Kaki Bukit Prison School, where he was held from 2003 to 2006, because his student films are based on his own crime and punishment.

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times' Life!