In 2009, Malaysian New Wave director Ho Yuhang teamed up with Hong Kong actress Kara Wai to create At the End the Daybreak, which brought Wai’s action heroine career back to life. Now,they’re back with Mrs K , an action film set in Southeast Asia that explores its diversity and culture while also being a kickass movie. Kara Wai stars as the titular Mrs K, an upper middle class … Continue reading Preview: Mrs K (SGIFF 2016)
Taste is a short film following Bassley, a Nigerian football player in the Vietnamese football league. After breaking his leg, he is let off and in desperation, finds work in a sex parlour to provide for his wife and son back home. Vietnamese director Le Bao has a very strong sense of atmosphere in Taste, bringing out the dark, seedy aspects of a sex parlour and the rural … Continue reading SGIFF 2016: Taste + Town In A lake
The 2016 French Film Festival began with a bang at Alliance Francaise with opening film Les Cowboys. Before the film, we were also treated to a view of the Gaumont Exhibition happening simultaneously, which exhibited iconic film posters of the past 120 years of French cinema. Les Cowboys is a modern Western that takes its influence from John Ford’s 1956 film The Searchers, with a similar plot involving cowboys searching … Continue reading French Film Festival 2016: Les Cowboys dir. Thomas Bidegain
The 27th SGIFF starts off with a bang, beginning with the Asian premiere of visionary Malaysian director Dain Iskandar Said’s new film Interchange. Set in a modern metropolis, Interchange explores the seedy depths of the subterranean underworld, a modern neo-noir playing on the supernatural and mythology of Southeast Asia. Come see the dark side of the modern Asian city, with intense, rarely seen views of streetwalker lined … Continue reading Preview: SGIFF 2016 Opening Film + Special Presentation – Interchange + The Pursuit of A Happy Human Life
The annual French Film Festival is back again! We’re huge lovers of French cinema, and the selection this year is very exciting, with a well curated set of films from the last few years. Organized by Institut Français Singapour, the French Embassy and Alliance Française, the 2016 French Film Festival presents a selection of 18 films, ranging from cult classics to all new films fresh … Continue reading Preview: French Film Festival 2016
Hot off the 2016 London Film Festival, Your Name is the latest from director Makoto Shinkai, whose previous works include 5 Centimeters Per Second (2007) and Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011). I’ve personally always loved Shinkai’s work ever since catching Voices of A Distant Star ages ago, and it’s incredible how Your Name has become one of the highest grossing anime films in Japan, second only to films by animation giant Studio Ghibli. Your Name brings … Continue reading Review: Your Name dir. Makoto Shinkai
The Singapore International Film Festival enters its 27th year, and as always, brings together some of the very best of new independent cinema to our little red dot. This time around, it’s going to have a fiercely Asian theme, courtesy of the team headed by festival Executive Director Yuni Hadi and Programme Director Zhang Wenjie. This year, the festival will screen 161 carefully curated feature length … Continue reading Preview: Singapore International Film Festival 2016 – Telling Our Stories
In this rare film from Niger, and a female directed film at that, Rahmatou Keïta has crafted a fresh, honest look at a different side of Africa. In The Wedding Ring, you won’t find the Western stereotypes of starving children and violence, rather, a quiet look at Nigerien culture through the eyes of a young girl. The Wedding Ring stars Magaajyia Silberfeld as Tiyaa, a young woman … Continue reading London Film Festival 2016: The Wedding Ring dir. Rahmatou Keïta
Magnus Carlsen is a chess prodigy, specifically speaking, becoming a World Champion in 2013 at the age of 22. I’m no chess expert myself, but I’ve always associated chess with old fogeys in the park taking forever to make their next move, and not dapper young men with crowds cheering for them as they enter the arena. Benjamin Ree’s Magnus seeks to change the view of chess. … Continue reading London Film Festival 2016: Magnus dir. Benjamin Ree (+Interview!)
Lion, originally titled A Long Way Home, is one of the latest films from the Weinstein Company, and is based off a book by Saroo Brierley. Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman headline this ‘based on a true story’ film. Lion follows Saroo’s life, lost from his family in India at the age of five and adopted by an Australian family, and later on reuniting with his real family using Google Earth, … Continue reading London Film Festival 2016: Lion dir. Garth Davis
