The Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) is back for its 33rd edition from November 24 to December 4, bringing a robust programme of 101 films, many of which will be making their international or Southeast Asian premieres in Singapore. Here are the top films that you have to check out!
1. Myanmar Diaries
Myanmar Film Collective produced Myanmar Diaries serves to remind the world about their struggle against a murderous state. It showcases the life and emotions of Myanmar citizens after the military junta in Burma overthrew the government in February 2021. The citizens were thrust into a world where state-sponsored violence was rampant and challenged the junta. This hybrid documentary consists of film captured by people recounting their own experiences and description of the feelings that the Burmese experienced after the coup.
2. Nezouh
A film about a family's experiences in war-torn Syria, Nezouh shows a family of 3 living in Damascus who have to decide whether to risk their lives by remaining in Syria or leave and utterly uproot their lives. The family drama reveals the frailty of the masculine ego and empathizes with the teenage yearnings for freedom and inventiveness. Nezouh offers an insightful analysis on the contradictions and difficulties of becoming a refugee. Despite being a work of fiction, Director Soudade Kaadan captures the lives of millions of individuals.
3. Aftersun
Director Charlotte Wells encapsulates the love behind a father-daughter bond and beckons viewers to savor its very specific heartbreak – what it's like to love someone yet never quite comprehend them. Aftersun shows eleven-year-old Sophie on a trip in Turkey with her father Calum but they were both faced with conflicts. As an adult, Sophie then searches through the home video she took on the trip and took a trip down the memory lane.
4. Geylang
Set in Singapore's notorious red-light district, Geylang features the inside pulsating world of Geylang where crime and corruption unfold in quick succession. On the eve of election nomination day, an aid worker, pimp, sex worker, doctor, cigarette seller and corrupted political candidate crossed paths and revealed their secrets and greed for personal wins. Singaporean filmmaker Boi Kwong emulated the “chicken-and-egg” relationship between crime and power through his cast of characters.
5. The Abandoned
The Abandoned talks about the life behind undocumented workers in suburban Taiwan. It features a grieving cop, Wu Jie, and underground broker, You-Sheng who became implicated in a series of homicide cases of runaway migrant worker and undocumented workers. Director Tseng Ying-Ting aims to expose the selective myopia of a society that casts the sidelined further into secrecy and dispossession but also shows the magnitude of empathetic space that those who have loved and lost can hold for each other.
6. Unidentified
Director Jude Chun presents a humorous, odd, and unexpectedly poignant depiction of the Korean millennial mind as it switches between sci-fi mockumentary and absurdist comedy. Unidentified is for you if you've ever wished for a borderless utopia, felt like you were homeless in space, or experienced catastrophic worry. In 1993, UFOs start to hover over various places in the world. 29 years later, an interview was conducted with people who (re)connect in their dreams with persons from the past and the future while some turned to UFO cults for comfort when they no longer feel like they belong on Earth. Meanwhile, the country is experiencing small-scale attacks by “aliens” on people (or is it the other way around?).
7. We Don't Dance For Nothing
We Don't Dance For Nothing features H, a young Filipino domestic worker based in Hong Kong, who dreams of moving to another country to start anew but struggles to do so due to her attachment to her employers' children. However, the occurrence of the 2019 Hong Kong protests left domestic workers and protestors to fend for themselves. Director Stefanos Tai combined photo montage and live action to portray the humanistic lives of an underrepresented yet significant community in Hong Kong.
8. Stone Turtle
Stone Turtle is a revenge thriller with unique storytelling and animation. In this island folk horror, Director Woo Ming Jin features a refugee and a researcher who become involved in a cunning game of deception. Zahara, a stateless immigrant lives on a remote island where life is boring and dull. After Samad, a researcher, showed up and persuaded Zahara to help him navigate the island, their life of solitude was over. Along the way, exchanges between Zahara and Samad result in a lethal game of wits and cunning.
9. Nocebo
Director Lorcan Finnegan produced a psychological thriller featuring two polar opposite ladies – Christine, a designer of children's clothing, who suffers from a crippling sickness and Diana, a Filipina domestic helper who assists and brings with her a promising folk remedy that quickly unnerves the family and exposes a suppressed reality. Nocebo asks: How far will we go to treat and eradicate the kinds of ills buried in the unexplored depths of the psyche, the body, and our communities?
10. The Novelist's Film
The Novelist's Film shows how renowned novelist Jun-hee struggles with writer's block and ways to express her creative side. She then meets younger Kil-soo and their immediate chemistry inspires a creative partnership: Jun-hee suggests producing a movie with Kil-soo as the lead. This spare, intimate autofiction finds Director Hong Sang-soo at his most personal yet. A manifesto on his own style – and a love letter – emerges from what begins as a self-referential analysis of artistic freedom and its straightforward yet sensual delights.
The 33rd edition of SGIFF returns from November 24 to December 4, 2022. Tickets are on sale at sgiff.com.
