Film Picks: Cinema Reclaimed, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and European Film Festival

Cinema Reclaimed: Driving, Kicking And Punching

The National Heritage Board’s Singapore HeritageFest is an annual celebration of culture and heritage, and Cinema Reclaimed is its film strand. The curators – lecturer and writer Ben Slater with artist and researcher Toh Hun Ping – have created an accessible and offbeat programme of Singapore films that explore this year’s themes, sport and transport.

In 2005, a cheeky video surfaced in Singapore. Everyone, it seemed, shared the clip featuring football-mad lads sneaking games on public spaces, and arguing about and betting on matches.

The clip, Tak Giu, was the work of Jacen Tan, who with his film-making collective Hosaywood followed up with short films about football, including the 2011 film Kwa Giu – Tribute To The National Stadium.

Slater calls this “an immersive ‘you are there’ document of a tension-filled match between Singapore and Thailand in 2007, a few years before the stadium was demolished – it becomes a haunting tribute”.

The Complete Hosaywood Football Shorts, 2005-2020 (PG, 75 minutes, screens on Sunday, 5pm) for the first time brings the six works together in a curated programme.

Tan will be attending the screening with some of his cast and crew and will hold a question-and-answer session.

Where: Oldham Theatre, 1 Canning Rise
MRT: City Hall/Dhoby Ghaut/Bras Basah
When: Till May 28, various timings
Admission: Screenings are $10. Talks are free
Info: Go to

str.sg/ioyb

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (M18)

100 minutes, now showing at The Projector, 4 stars

This European co­-production with English dialogue adapts six of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s short stories and arrives on the heels of his 2022 Oscar-­winning Drive My Car.

It is set just after the 2011 Great Sendai Earthquake. Two Tokyo salarymen are further destabilised when told their bank jobs will be outsourced. One is a timid debt collector who is visited that night by a talking frog seeking his help to save what is left of the city from a giant subterranean worm, and the other characters in this magic-­realist animation are his colleague and the latter’s wife.

The personal journeys of the three individuals drift from one to the other while surreal disturbances bleed into the mundane. Ghosts are everywhere.

Murakami’s whimsy and melancholy find beautiful expression in this Annecy International Animation Film Festival prize-winner.  

European Film Festival

Now in its 32nd edition and one of Singapore’s longest-running film events, the 2023 festival features more than 20 films, representing “the best of contemporary European cinema”, according to its brochure.

One highlight of the festival, presented by the European Union Delegation to Singapore, is the Irish coming-of-age drama The Quiet Girl (PG13, 2022, 94 minutes, screens on May 26, 8pm).

This adaptation of a short story by Irish writer Claire Keegan is set in the countryside, in the 1980s. The introverted Cait (Catherine Clinch) is having problems at home, so she is sent to live with distant relatives on their farm. There, she finds happiness, but discovers that her adopted home hides secrets.

The mostly Irish-language film (with English subtitles) was nominated in the Best International Feature Film category at the 2023 Academy Awards, while first-time feature director Colm Bairead won the Grand Prix for Best Film from the Generation Kplus International Jury at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival.

Where: The Projector, 05-00 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road
MRT: Nicoll Highway/Lavender
When: Till May 31, various times
Admission: $15, with concessions for full-time national servicemen, Singapore Film Society members and others
Info: For details and to make bookings, go to

www.euff.sg