Singapore Chinese Film Festival
Feature debuts, new films lined up
The 45 works will include those under the Second New Wave Taiwanese film movement as well as more recent fare
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Second New Wave Taiwanese cinema will come under the spotlight at the annual Singapore Chinese Film Festival, which is returning this year with a line-up of 45 films.
The festival will revisit the feature debut of three Taiwanese directors who are part of the Second New Wave film movement, which started around 1990.
While still committed to the Taiwanese perspective of the New Wave Cinema of the 1980s, these works have been deemed to be more accessible to general audiences.
They are Tropical Fish (1995) by Chen Yu-hsun; Mirror Image (2000) by Hsiao Ya-chuan; and Let The Wind Carry Me (2009) by Chiang Hsiu-chiung. The three directors will be part of a free online panel discussion on May 9.
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the festival will follow a hybrid format similar to last year's edition, with both physical and digital screenings.
The ninth edition of the festival will run from April 30 to May 9, partnering Filmgarde Bugis+, Golden Village and Asian Film Archive for the physical screenings, and Shaw KinoLounge for the online programme.
Ticket sales begin today at noon. Prices for physical screenings range from $13.50 to $15 while those for online screenings range from $10.50 to $11.50.
The opening film is Hong Kong's crime thriller Hand Rolled Cigarette, starring Hong Kong actor Gordon Lam (Trivisa, 2016). It received seven nominations at last year's Golden Horse Awards, but did not win any.
The directorial debut from Chan Kin-long is one of six Hong Kong titles at this year's festival and tells the tale of a retired British-Chinese soldier who forms a comradeship with a South Asian man.
This will be the movie's South-east Asian premiere.
The festival, organised by Singapore Film Society and Centre for Chinese Studies@Singapore University of Social Sciences, will also include 14 titles from China, 21 from Taiwan, three from Malaysia and one from Singapore.
The Documentary Vision section includes notable titles like last year's Golden Horse Award winner for Best Documentary, the Hong Kong political documentary Lost Course; and The Good Daughter, Taipei Film Awards' Best Documentary, about a foreign bride married to a rural Taiwanese man.
Twenty-one short films, including one from Singapore, will also be shown.
Closing the festival is environmental drama Anima by Chinese director Cao Jinling, about a pair of brothers living in 1980s China, filmed in Inner Mongolia.
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9TH SINGAPORE CHINESE FILM FESTIVAL
WHERE Various venues and online
WHEN April 30 to May 9, various timings
ADMISSION From $10.50 to $15 a screening; bundle deals available
INFO www.scff.sg
