Singapore film We Can Save The World!!! finally gets cinema run after Projector, Cathay closures

SINGAPORE – The team behind the Singapore science-fiction comedy We Can Save The World!!! faced one setback after another in looking for a cinema to screen their indie film.

But their worries have come to an end. Boutique cinema EagleWings Cinematics and major chains Golden Village and Shaw Theatres have signed on as exhibitors. The local movie opens on Sept 18, and tickets are available now.

The team’s rocky ride began after they locked in a deal with indie cinema The Projector to release We Can Save The World!!! at its Cineleisure premises on Aug 1.

But The Projector announced it would quit the space in early August. Two weeks later, the cinema ceased all operations for good.

Luckily, other options came up. Producer Martin Loh says they were in talks with Cathay Cineplexes and other operators. They were about to close a deal with Cathay when bad luck struck again.

“The next thing we knew, we woke up on a Monday morning and found it had also stopped operations,” he tells The Straits Times of the sudden Sept 1 closure.

But things began to look up after

ST’s Aug 21 article about the film-makers’ turbulent journey

and their determination to find a release date, says Loh, 31.

“After it was published, local businesses contacted us. A lot of them quoted the article and asked us how they could help,” he adds.

They included educational institutions such as Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the alma mater of producers Loh, Lee Yi Jia and Tan Jia Min.

NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information proposed a screening at a lecture theatre, while design firms and companies offered their studios and screening rooms.

Writer-director Cheng Chai Hong, 35, says that after the setbacks, they had become “emotionally hardened”, so the outpouring of support was welcome.

He says the ST article, followed by several others in the local media, provided a credibility boost that paved the way for discussions with Shaw Theatres and Golden Village.

“It’s understandable for them to hesitate about working with us. This is my first movie, and if I were in their shoes, I could hesitate as well,” he says.

We Can Save The World!!! – which held its world premiere on July 17 at the New York Asian Film Festival – is a privately funded project made without the help of an established production house or government support.

And it will be a mainstream film mostly in English, making it an outlier when Singapore comedies released in cinemas in recent years have been in Mandarin.

The team declined to disclose the film’s budget, but some money was raised during a 2023 campaign on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo. The rest came from private investors familiar with Cheng’s work, such as the web series Average Guys (2017) and Neighbourhood Watch Task Force (2019). 

We Can Save The World!!! stars Ah Boys To Men (2012 to 2017) actor Noah Yap as Ryan, a jaded government worker with a soul-crushing job. He meets Peng (Malaysian actor Jun Vinh Teoh), a normal-looking man who claims to be from another planet.

A sceptical Ryan helps Peng uncover the truth about his origins, causing their paths to cross with Jordana (Xuan Ong) and Jeraldine (Daisy Irani Subaiah), members of a secret government agency. Danial (Fauzi Azzhar) is a cult leader who becomes entangled in their adventures.

On opting for English dialogue with a smattering of Singlish, Cheng says: “We wanted to make a love letter to Singaporeans that everyone, of all races, can watch and enjoy together. People like my friends and family, my neighbours – not all of them understand Mandarin.” 

Despite the film’s fiercely independent stance, he stresses that it is not an art-house project.

“I want to entertain every kind of Singaporean of all ages – uncles, aunties, our generation, Gen Z, millennials – while putting out a story and a message that I believe in.”

Cheng is relieved his labour of love can be watched on the big screen, adding: “We’re thankful people took a chance on us and opened their doors. For our generation, getting into movie-making, nobody knows what the next five or 10 years will look like. We’re learning from our predecessors while trying to figure out our own path forward.”