Singapore Film Society to launch indie cinema at former Projector hall from Jan 1

SINGAPORE – Come Jan 1, 2026, a 66-seater hall in Golden Village (GV) Cineleisure will have a new lease of life as a dedicated screening hall for independent and Singapore films, run by the Singapore Film Society (SFS). It is a space formerly operated by indie cinema operator The Projector

until its abrupt closure in August 2025

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SFS chairman Kenneth Tan, 60, told The Straits Times that the new SFS Somerset will screen eight films a week and focus on films that have had limited or no screenings in Singapore. Among his promises is that SFS Somerset will programme every single Singapore film which passes the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s muster: “I will not turn any away.”

Films will play at a regular 7.30pm slot from Wednesdays to Sundays, as well as 1.30pm and 4pm for Saturdays and 4pm on Sundays. Tickets cost $15 for non-members and $9 for members. The line-up, which will be released on a weekly basis from late December, will be flexible enough to respond to audience demand and feedback, Mr Tan shares.

“

The closure of The Projector had a chain effect

– a lot of independent films were looking for a home and some festivals were looking for alternative venues,” says Mr Tan of SFS’s decision to launch SFS Somerset. At the same time, SFS – which organises film festivals such as the Japanese Film Festival – is seeing an uptick in its audiences for niche films, even as cinemas like Eng Wah, Filmgarde and Cathay Cineplexes have closed recently.

“In the domain in which we work, the opposite is happening. Post-pandemic, people are yearning for communal experiences, provided they are special and different. I think it also explains, in large measure, why there was such an outcry when the news of The Projector was announced,” he says.

His initial arrangement with GV is for the whole of 2026, although he fully intends for this to be a long-term space. Mr Tan – who was the managing director of GV from 2003 to 2008 – has come to an agreement with GV to programme films at the hall for no rental cost, with the hopes that SFS Somerset will bring in a different demographic to Cineleisure. GV, SFS and the film rights owner will split ticket sales equally.

“We were only daring enough to plunge into this because we realised we don’t need to cough up a big sum of money to do it,” says Mr Tan. The new cinema will add more than 400 screenings to SFS’s approximately 200 films that it currently organises annually, and SFS – a non-profit founded in 1954 which has only three full-time staff – will deploy about a dozen of its 60 volunteers for the effort.

GV’s cosy 66-seater Hall 6 – formerly Roxy Hall under The Projector – is the perfect capacity for niche independent films, Mr Tan says, adding that he hopes to attract embassies of less well-known countries to work with him to screen films from their countries. Dialogues with film-makers and mixers are also on the table, although he says not to expect the kinds of events and parties that The Projector was known for.

SFS Somerset’s opening film has yet to be decided, but

home-grown director Michael Kam’s debut feature The Old Man And His Car

– which sold out at

the ongoing Singapore International Film Festival

– will show in the first week. Mr Tan is also in talks with independent distributors Anticipate Pictures, Cineaste and Lighthouse. The horror lover says he hopes at some point to screen the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a film that was once an annual affair at The Projector.

On his hopes for SFS Somerset, Mr Tan says: “I hope that SFS Somerset will become the go-to home base for independent films – really, all films that want that home base.”

More information will be available from late December at

https://sfs-somerset.com

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