Singapore film-maker Nelson Yeo’s Dreaming & Dying to debut at Locarno film fest
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Dreaming & Dying’s writer-director Nelson Yeo says that the film finds him “trying to explore how we choose to remember”.
PHOTO: MOMO FILM CO/GRACE BAEY
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SINGAPORE – Singaporean film-maker Nelson Yeo’s debut feature Dreaming & Dying will have its world premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival this weekend.
The film is a fantasy-drama about three middle-aged friends on holiday who are meeting for the first time in years. Things take a turn when something from their past comes to the surface.
It stars Straits Times Life Theatre Awards winner Doreen Toh, veteran television and film actor Peter Yu, and actor Kelvin Ho. Both Yu and Ho were in A Land Imagined (2018), a drama written and directed by Yeo Siew Hua (no relation to Nelson Yeo) which won Locarno’s top award, the Golden Leopard.
The festival, founded in 1946, takes place each year in the southern Swiss town that gives the event its name. The 2023 edition runs from Wednesday to Aug 12 in 2023.
In a statement, Dreaming’s writer-director Nelson Yeo, 39, says that the film finds him “trying to explore how we choose to remember”.
“As time passes, fantasy sometimes becomes reality and things take on a meaning of their own,” he adds.
Yeo’s short films have been selected for international film festivals such as the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Cairo International Film Festival.
Dreaming is produced by Singapore-based Momo Film Co, with Tan Si En and Sophia Sim as producers.
Tan’s producing credits include two Anthony Chen films, the feature-length drama Wet Season (2019) and the short film The Break Away, released as part of the anthology The Year Of The Everlasting Storm (2021).
In the statement, both producers said that they were excited to share this new film.
“Recognition from established international film festivals such as Locarno reaffirms what Singapore has to offer.”
