Made-with-Singapore short film Before The Sea Forgets enters Cannes Film Festival

SINGAPORE – A made-with-Singapore short film has been selected to screen at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival’s independent sidebar event, the Directors’ Fortnight.

Before The Sea Forgets is directed by Vietnamese film-maker Le Ngoc Duy and produced by Singapore production houses 13 Little Pictures and WBSB Films.

The film, set in Vietnam, is a magical realist story of a young man who suspects his lover of infidelity. While searching for a forgotten grave with family secrets, he meets a ghost who forces him to reflect on disturbing truths about his partner.

Singaporeans involved in the film include co-producer Looi Wan Ping and film colourist Eugene Seah.

The short film joins two made-with-Singapore feature films, Renoir and A Useful Ghost, screening at this year’s Cannes, which runs from May 13 to 24 and is held in Cannes, France.

Renoir, co-produced by Singapore-based Akanga Films Asia, is among the 21 films selected for the main competition section from over 2,900 submissions worldwide.

The film, directed by Japanese film-maker Chie Hayakawa, tells the story of Fuki (Yui Suzuki), an 11-year-old girl living with a terminally ill father and a harried working mother.

The film will compete for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest award, along with works from celebrated film-makers such as France’s Julia Ducournau, Scotland’s Lynne Ramsay, Iran’s Jafar Panahi, and Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson, both from the United States.

The Singapore-Japan-France-Philippines-Indonesia production is the first film with Singapore participation to enter the main competition since Eric Khoo’s Tamil-language drama My Magic (2008).

In 2007, Singapore film-maker Anthony Chen’s short film Ah Ma (2007) was selected to compete for the Short Film Palme d’Or, where it won the Special Mention prize.

Also screening at Cannes is the Singapore-Thailand-France film A Useful Ghost, directed by Thai film-maker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke. The comedy follows a man whose wife, after dying from dust pollution, returns to the world in the form of a vacuum cleaner.

The film is co-produced by Singapore-based Momo Film Co and has been selected for Critics’ Week, a parallel section of the festival dedicated to film-makers’ first and second films.

Renoir and A Useful Ghost received the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) Go-Global Grant and Southeast Asia (SEA) Co-Production Grant respectively, under the IMDA’s Media Talent Progression Programme.  For both productions, a total of 30 Singapore media professionals worked in production, sound, editing, art department and casting teams.

In a press statement, Ms Yvonne Tang, IMDA’s assistant chief executive of the Media Industry Group, said Singapore’s participation in the Cannes Film Market, one of the world’s largest marketplace for films, “celebrates nearly three decades of showcasing made-with-Singapore content” at the event.

She added: “Cannes remains a key platform for Singapore film-makers and producers to market their stories globally and build international partnerships. Our strong presence here demonstrates how Singapore, despite its size, consistently produces brilliant storytellers who can compete on the world stage.”