Film Picks
In made-with-Singapore Thai film A Useful Ghost, the spooky and satirical come together
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Thai film A Useful Ghost blends absurd supernatural ideas about a haunted vacuum cleaner with satire about exploitation.
PHOTO: FILMHOUSE
A Useful Ghost (R21)
130 minutes
In a world where the dead stick around as ghosts if someone close to them remembers their former life, Nat (singer-actress Davika Hoorne) comes to haunt a vacuum cleaner which belongs to her husband March (Witsarut Himmarat), who is still grieving her death.
Complications ensue when his mother Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon) has ghost problems of her own: Her electronics factory is plagued by the vengeful spirit of a worker who died on the job.
The debut feature of Thai film-maker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke is backed by production labels from Thailand, Singapore, Germany and France. Winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prix at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, A Useful Ghost has been praised for its genre-bending ambition, which mixes supernatural fantasy with absurd comedy and a satirical take on political violence.
American entertainment magazine Variety calls it “a sprawling fable of love and loss that isn’t quite like anything you’ve seen before – its offbeat charm is winning, as is its successful transition into melancholy and the macabre”.
Where: Filmhouse, Level 5 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road filmhouse.sg/film/28/a-useful-ghost
MRT: Nicoll Highway
When: Feb 22, 2.30pm; Feb 27, 7.30pm; and March 5, 7.30pm
Info: Tickets ($13 for a standard ticket on weekdays and $16.50 for a standard ticket on weekends) are available from
10s Across The Borders (R21)
99 minutes
Ballroom personality Aurora Sun Labeija from Thailand is featured in the documentary 10s Across The Borders.
PHOTO: FILMHOUSE
This debut feature by Singaporean documentary and experimental dance film-maker Chan Sze-Wei charts the rise of the underground ballroom culture in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Ballroom culture centres on “balls” – events where participants, mostly from LGBTQ+ communities, celebrate modelling, dance, fashion and lip-sync performances.
10s Across The Borders puts a spotlight on three individuals, each struggling with homophobia, family abandonment or other forms of discrimination, and how each one finds belonging and identity in the ballroom.
Ballroom personality Xyza Pinklady Mizrahi from the Philippines is featured in the documentary 10s Across The Borders.
PHOTO: FILMHOUSE
The documentary was selected to screen at the 2025 Busan International Film Festival, where it competed in the Wide Angle documentary competition, and the 2025 Singapore International Film Festival.
View Of The Arts, a Britain-based online publication with a focus on Asian entertainment, says Chan’s work deals not just with glamour or hardship, but also “the heart of belonging and chosen family”. In this film, “cinema itself becomes a communal ballroom”.
Where: Filmhouse, Level 5 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road filmhouse.sg/film/11/10s-across-the-borders
MRT: Nicoll Highway
When: Feb 21, 1.30pm; and Feb 28, 5pm
Info: Tickets ($13 for a standard ticket on weekdays and $16.50 for a standard ticket on weekends) are available from
In The Mood For Love In Concert
A performance of the In The Mood For Love In Concert in Sydney, Australia, in March 2025.
PHOTO: RAVYNA JASSANI
The romantic drama In The Mood For Love (2000) by acclaimed Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar Wai has not just been elevated by critics to the ranks of the best films ever made. It has also spawned an industry in retrospective screenings and, now, a live concert.
Starring Hong Kong actors Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai, the achingly delicious chronicle of regret about feelings not acted upon will land in Sands Theatre in October with a lush live musical accompaniment.
The Base Philharmonic Orchestra – comprising local musicians and conducted by Young Artist Award recipient Joshua Tan – will play the score live, as a full high-definition copy of the 98-minute film plays in the background.
Fans of the classic film will associate the waltz Yumeji’s Theme with it. Originally composed by Japan’s Shigeru Umebayashi for the Japanese biopic Yumeji (1991), it was picked up by Wong as In The Mood For Love’s main motif. Other pieces in the film include recordings by American singer-composer Nat King Cole, as well as Chinese songs and opera pieces.
Previously held in Sydney, Australia, in March 2025, the concert here is presented by Base Entertainment Asia.
Where: Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands, 10 Bayfront Avenue str.sg/B3f4 str.sg/Br4s Klook str.sg/qTfv
MRT: Bayfront
When: Oct 24, 2 and 8pm; and Oct 25, 1pm
Admission: Tickets priced from $68 to $158 are available at Marina Bay Sands (
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