My Perfect Weekend with film festival manager and producer Jeremy Chua
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Jeremy Chua at the Bourse de Commerce, a contemporary art museum in Paris housing the Pinault Collection of art.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF JEREMY CHUA
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Who: For Jeremy Chua, the 37-year-old producer and general manager of the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), the weekend can be spent here or in Paris. He splits his time between his HDB flat and his rented apartment in the Bastille district of the French capital.
After graduating from Lasalle College of the Arts in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in film, he took up an internship at an experimental film label in Paris, then chose to reside there after the end of his stint. That is where he co-wrote the drama A Yellow Bird (2016), while also producing prize-winning films such as the dramas Pierce (2024), Last Shadow At First Light (2023) and Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023), among others, through Potocol, a label he founded in 2014.
He returned to Singapore in 2023 after taking the post of general manager of SGIFF, starting with the 35th edition in 2024.
The recently ended 36th SGIFF, which opened on Nov 26, 2025 at Marina Bay Sands, set new records for SGIFF, with 44 sold-out screenings and a 33 per cent rise in ticket sales. The festival also saw a 28.7 per cent increase in attendance compared with 2024’s, marking its strongest audience attendance to date.
(From left) SGIFF festival ambassador Rebecca Lim; Girl director Shu Qi; SGIFF general manager Jeremy Chua; SGIFF chairperson Boo Junfeng; Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information; IMDA chief executive Ng Cher Pong; SGIFF board member Yvonne Tham; Girl’s actresses Bai Xiao-ying and 9m88; and SGIFF programme director Thong Kay Wee at the 36th Singapore International Film Festival red carpet on Nov 26.
ST PHOTO: ARIFFIN JAMAR
“My weekend almost always begins with a bicycle ride in the morning. It is a nice kind of meditation for me because I get stimulated visually and that stimulation converts into other forms of imaginative energies. It helps me think about my writing or work from a more associative or creative sense.
In Singapore, my flatmate makes me cycle on weekends at 6am. We take different routes like East Coast Park, Sentosa or the Rail Corridor. If I start at the Tanjong Pagar side, I can go all the way to Changi on my Giant Escape hybrid bike.
The Singapore drama A Yellow Bird (2016), starring Sivakumar Palakrishnan (pictured), was co-written and co-produced by Jeremy Chua.
PHOTO: AKANGA FILM ASIA
In Paris, I use the public bikes with a city bike pass. I started doing this when I first moved there as a 23-year-old and didn’t have any friends. The metro was expensive, so my idea of learning to be alone was cycling around a new neighbourhood every weekend. That habit stuck with me and bumping into street or fruit markets visually helps me start the day.
After cycling, I enjoy going back home to write. Then I go gallery hopping.
I usually do these activities alone because I don’t do them as entertainment; they are more of a personal activity or a meditation. In a gallery, I don’t like the feeling that someone is waiting for me when I feel inspired.
In Singapore, I walk to random places in different neighbourhoods for visual stimuli. In Paris, my favourite art galleries are Galerie Perrotin, Thaddaeus Ropac and Gagosian.
My social circle in Paris is a mix of film-makers and people in the film community, like Carlo Francisco Manatad from the Philippines and Chinese documentary film-maker Wang Bing and his wife, Wang Yang, a producer.
There, the culture of going out is different. You can just text a friend at the last minute to have dinner or coffee and, most of the time, people say yes. We engage in conversations where no one is afraid of sounding stupid or having negative opinions.
Jeremy Chua at the Bourse de Commerce, a contemporary art museum in Paris housing the Pinault Collection of art.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF JEREMY CHUA
I live in the Bastille area, which is where many protests either start or end. The first time I was tear-gassed, I was cycling. I don’t know why, but I felt initiated. I fell off my bike as my eyes started to burn, but I thought, ‘I don’t get these experiences in Singapore’.
Sundays are more about domestic adulthood stuff. In my Bastille apartment, I clean it and take care of my potted plants.
I am a lactose-free, non-experimental foodie, so I usually go out to eat simple favourites like Teochew porridge in Singapore.
In Paris, I prepare frozen dumplings from Asian supermarkets. During the winter, I use my cinema membership card, which allows unlimited attendance, to spend eight or nine hours in a cinema watching three or four films back-to-back.
When I am in Singapore for the 10 or 11 months of the year required for SGIFF, Sundays are about family bonding. I visit my grandparents and cousins for board games. It feels like a little Chinese New Year gathering even though it isn’t.
That family connection is the special thing I miss most whenever I am back in Paris.”
