SINGAPORE - Singaporean film-maker Yeo Siew Hua's drama A Land Imagined has been selected as Singapore's entry to the Academy Awards' Best International Feature Film category, previously known as the Best Foreign Language Film category.

The movie stars Peter Yu as Lok, a detective looking into the disappearance of a migrant worker from China. He discovers a world inhabited by transient workers who remain mostly hidden from the view of locals, despite living alongside them.

At the 71st Locarno Film Festival, held in Switzerland in 2018, the drama, with dialogue mostly in Mandarin, won the Golden Leopard, the festival's top prize.

It also won Best Film in the Asian Feature Film Competition at the Singapore International Film Festival's Silver Screen Awards in 2018, making it the first local film to do so since the launch of the awards in 1991.

The film was selected for the Academy Awards by the Singapore Film Commission (SFC), which is part of the Infocomm Media Development Authority.

The director of the SFC, Mr Joachim Ng, said in a press statement: "We are proud to announce the selection of A Land Imagined as Singapore's entry for the Oscars, as it is a deep and insightful film that delves into themes such as the social integration of migrant labourers. The film has won critical acclaim at many film festivals and is a great example of a made-with-Singapore film that has the potential to win audiences around the world."

In the statement, Yeo, 34, said: "A Land Imagined is a tribute to Singapore and those who helped to build this migrant nation, so we are thrilled that it will represent our country on a stage as big as the Oscars."

The 10 films that make the Oscar nomination shortlist will be announced in December and the final five nominees will be announced on Jan 13, 2020. The Oscars will take place on Feb 9.

No Singapore film has made it to the shortlist thus far.

Singapore's previous submissions include the western Buffalo Boys (2018), set-in-Thailand road movie Pop Aye (2017) and psychological drama Apprentice (2016).