After setting international festivals alight from Toronto to Taipei, Amoeba finally comes home. Opening in Singapore cinemas on 26 March, the award-winning debut feature from Tan Siyou is shaping up to be the local release everyone will be talking about this year. Equal parts coming-of-age drama, surreal fever dream, and quiet act of rebellion, Amoeba isn’t here to comfort. It’s here to stir something, especially if you grew up in Singapore.

Before its local wide release, Amoeba enjoyed a sold-out Asian premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival, following a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Since then, it’s picked up major accolades including prizes at the Golden Horse Film Festival and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards; a rare feat for a Singapore debut feature. Shot through with international craft (from acclaimed cinematographer Neus Ollé to a pan-European post-production team), Amoeba proves that a film can be deeply local and globally resonant.

Set against the backdrop of a rigid, all-girls secondary school, Amoeba offers an unapologetic look at growing up in Singapore. The story centers on Choo Xin Yu (Ranice Tay), a 16-year-old dropout who re-enters the system, only to spark an unlikely alliance with three fellow misfits: Vanessa (Nicole Lee), Sofia (Lim Shi-An) and Gina (Genevieve Tan). What starts as a high-school friendship evolves into a secret “gang” fueled by suppressed desires and a hunt for the supernatural. Armed with a camcorder and inspired by the stories of an old family driver (Taiwanese veteran Jack Kao), the girls attempt to carve out their own identity in a society where conformity is the golden rule.

From a secret gang, a camcorder, whispered ghost stories, and a growing sense that something buried is demanding to be seen, this is a Singapore school story unlike any you’ve seen before, one that swaps nostalgia for unease, realism for the supernatural, and discipline for desire.

For Tan Siyou, Amoeba is personal. Drawing from her own adolescence in a high-pressure all-girls school, the film interrogates what she calls the “quiet violence” of growing up in a system where conformity is survival. The title itself comes from a teenage coping mechanism: imagining oneself as an amoeba: small, formless, invisible. But as the film suggests, what we suppress doesn’t disappear. It returns. Sometimes as ghosts.

Unlike many Singapore films that lean into social realism, Amoeba embraces genre, from surrealism, to horror, all to articulate things that are hard to say out loud. It asks uncomfortable questions about identity, obedience, and the cost of fitting in, all while pulsing with the raw energy of youth. This is a film for anyone who’s ever felt out of place in a system designed to mould, not listen.

Distributed by Anticipate Pictures, Amoeba opens exclusively in Singapore cinemas from 26 March 2026, with strictly limited opening-weekend screenings and intimate post-show Q&As with Tan Siyou and special guests.

Full screening details and ticketing links will be announced soon. Follow @anticipatepictures for updates.