After a year of international acclaim and three Golden Horse Award nominations, Ang Geck Geck Priscilla’s debut feature returns to Singapore for a gala premiere ahead of its nationwide cinema release on 19 November.
Some films travel the world before finding their way home. For Ah Girl (泡泡糖女孩), that homecoming is a particularly meaningful one. The Singaporean coming-of-age drama celebrated its gala premiere at Capitol Theatre on 2 November, bringing together the film’s cast and crew, industry guests and special attendees, including Guest-of-Honour Ms Jane Ittogi, First Lady of Singapore, and Senior Minister of State Mr Tan Kiat How of MDDI and MOH.
Presented by Aggregate Films and Kusu Films, and supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the film will open in cinemas islandwide on 19 November, following a remarkable year on the international festival circuit.
Since its world premiere at the 55th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), where it received the Youth Jury Award and was selected for the Bright Future programme, Ah Girl has travelled to Hong Kong, Udine, Innsbruck, Shanghai, Munich, Da Nang, Bucheon, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto and Bangkok. Most recently, it opened Jakarta Film Week 2026.
The film’s international reception has been equally encouraging, earning a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an impressive 8.5 out of 10 on Douban, China’s leading film review platform. Yet for director Ang Geck Geck Priscilla, bringing the film home to Singapore is the moment she has been waiting for.
“Everyone was once a child, and everyone has a story of family to tell. This is mine,” says Ang. “I never expected the film to travel so far. In Rotterdam, Hong Kong and Toronto, audiences came up to me after screenings to share their own childhoods, and how the film gave them a sense of healing and reconciliation. Bringing it home to Singapore audiences is the moment I’ve been waiting for.”
Set in Singapore in 1994, Ah Girl follows seven-year-old Ah Girl as she begins primary school and navigates the complicated world of adults following her parents’ separation. Living in a small HDB flat with her younger sister, Ah Tian, her taciturn father and her irritable grandmother, Ah Girl finds herself caught between two households and the expectations of the people she loves.
When her mother asks her to choose which parent she wants to live with, a decision that should never have been hers to make becomes the emotional centre of the story. Through the eyes of a child, the film explores family, belonging and the quiet wounds that can shape a childhood. Its intimate storytelling offers a portrait of Singapore that feels both deeply personal and universally recognisable.
Much of the film unfolds within the familiar confines of an HDB flat, a space where countless Singaporean families begin their lives together, raise children and create memories. By returning to this everyday setting, Ah Girl reminds audiences that home is not simply a place, but a collection of relationships, experiences and memories that continue to shape us.
The film also invites viewers to reconnect with the child they once were, and perhaps to see their own family stories in a new light.
Newcomers Ong Xuan Jing and Sydney Wong lead the film as sisters Ah Girl and Ah Tian, bringing an emotional authenticity to the story’s central relationship. They are joined by Mediacorp artistes Carrie Wong and James Seah, who make their feature film debuts, alongside theatre actress Doreen Toh and Benjamin Heng.
For Ang, finding the right young performers was an important part of bringing the story to life. The casting process took approximately a year across Singapore and Malaysia, with the director eventually selecting Ong and Wong from hundreds of auditioning children.
Rather than asking the young actors to perform emotions in a conventional way, Ang spent months building trust through workshops, games and one-to-one outings before filming began. The performance style thus felt natural and unforced, allowing the children’s experiences to unfold with the vulnerability and spontaneity of real childhood.
The film’s homecoming follows an impressive run of international recognition. At the 63rd Golden Horse Awards, Ah Girl received three nominations: Best New Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ang Geck Geck Priscilla, and Best New Performer for Ong Xuan Jing. The winners will be announced in Taipei on 22 November. The nominations form part of a record-breaking year for Singapore cinema, with five Singapore films collectively earning 15 nominations.
Ang is the second Singaporean woman in recent years to receive a Best New Director nomination, while Ong, who was just seven years old when she filmed Ah Girl, is recognised in the Best New Performer category.
The film has also earned accolades across the international festival circuit. At the 50th Hong Kong International Film Festival, it received the Firebird Award for Best Actress in the Young Cinema Competition. At the Malaysia International Film Festival, it won Best Actress (Shared) and the New Hope award at the Malaysia Golden Global Awards.
More recently, it received Best ASEAN Film and the New Voices Award at the Bangkok International Film Festival. At the 37th Singapore International Film Festival Silver Screen Awards on 31 October, Ah Girl won Best Asian Feature Film, making its homecoming even more meaningful.
“For any film, especially a debut, to stand alongside the best of international cinema on the festival stage is a commendable feat. Ah Girl shows how Singapore filmmaking continues to raise the bar, and it is surely one of the finest films in world cinema this year. Told through the eyes of a child, its honest, heartwarming story of family, hope and love is one many audiences will recognise, and we are proud to bring it to cinemas across Singapore,” says Christopher Shaw, Director for Film Acquisition and Distribution at Shaw Organisation, the film’s Singapore distributor.
Behind the accolades is a story of persistence and creative growth. Ah Girl began as a student short film, Broken Crayon, which Ang created as her final-year project at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media in 2013. The short won Best Short Film at the Singapore Short Film Festival that year.
Two further shorts, Three Little Pigs and Happy Birthday, continued to explore the same young female character before Ang began developing the feature-length story. “The script grew together with me. Over time, as my maturity and sensibility changed, the script evolved from something very dark into something more hopeful.”
The project went on to receive support from the Purin Film Fund and the SEAFIC Open SEA Fund, before being developed through international platforms including the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum and the Far East Film Festival’s Focus Asia: Far East in Progress. The film’s visual language is equally thoughtful. Shot in the 4:3 aspect ratio of 1990s television, it creates a sense of intimacy while reflecting the limited perspective of its young protagonist.
Even the film’s Chinese title, 泡泡糖女孩, or “Bubblegum Girl”, carries a symbolic meaning. For Ang, bubblegum represents the resilience of childhood: it stretches, it bursts, and it allows you to begin again. That spirit of resilience is at the heart of the film’s story, as Ah Girl learns to navigate a family that is changing around her while holding on to the hope of a future that can still be different.
The celebrations surrounding Ah Girl extend beyond the cinema. In a collaboration that brings the film’s nostalgic spirit into the world of food, local patisserie Nesuto has created a limited-edition Ah Girl Pandan Jagung Cake, inspired by the neighbourhood bakery favourites of 1990s Singapore.
The cake combines the flavours of kueh jagung and pandan kaya cake, layering light pandan soufflé sponge with corn kueh studded with fresh corn, then wrapping it all in smooth pandan and coconut kueh. Available in limited quantities at Nesuto outlets and online until December 2026, the creation offers a sweet reminder of the everyday flavours and memories that make the film’s setting so familiar.
With the gala premiere marking the beginning of its local release countdown, audiences can look forward to a preview screening at Shaw Theatre Lido on 14 November, alongside appearances by the director and cast. Further screenings, behind-the-scenes stories and little-known details from the making of the film will be shared in the coming weeks.
For Ang, Ah Girl is also only the beginning. She plans to revisit the character in two further films, following her journey into adolescence and adulthood. For now, the film’s return to Singapore offers audiences the chance to experience a story that has already touched viewers across the world — one that reminds us that even as families change and childhood fades, the memories of where we come from remain with us.
Featured Photo Credit: Erwin Tan
Ah Girl opens in cinemas islandwide on 19th November 2026. Follow @ahgirlfilm for the latest updates and upcoming screenings.
