February 8, 2013

You are invited to watch the final eight shortlisted films, all produced in 2012, and see the judges decide who wins the $500 prizes!

Click here to view a trailer of these eight short films.

NUS Open Day, 16 March 2013, 1.30pm – 4.30pm, UTown, Global Learning Room (Seminar Room 12), Level 2, Town Plaza. Refreshments will be provided.

PROGRAMME

1:00pm Registration and Refreshments

1:30pm Welcome Remarks, Assoc Prof Michelle Lazar

1:45pm Screening of Shortlisted Films (Fiction followed by Non-fiction) with Commentary by the Judges, Mr Chris Yeo, Dr Ingrid Hoofd, Assoc Prof Valerie Wee, and Dr Ivan Kwek

4:00pm Screening of “Incorporating Filmmaking into Coursework at FASS”, Interviews with FASS Faculty Members

4:15pm Announcement of Awards and Closing Remarks, Mr Chris Yeo and Assoc Prof Michelle Lazar

4:30pm End of Singapore on Screen

Shortlist – Fiction

Fire (produced for the module Understanding Modern China Through Film), 9 minutes and 21 seconds
Filmmakers: Chen Lingzi, Wang Yao, Aw Luo Min, Lee Sin Poh, Wu Si, Allison Angelene Swieca

Hello, Miss (produced for the module Film Genres: Stars and Styles), 8 minutes and 27 seconds
Filmmakers: Haikal Aziz, Corina Tan, Kenneth Ang, Tricia Chean, Yang Tzu Hsuan

MRT Gone (produced for the module An Introduction to Narrative), 4 minutes and 56 seconds
Filmmakers: Petter Skafle Henriksen, Teh Lan Xin, Lisa Zhao Chenyu, Tan Shi Pei, Chua Zhihua

The Rich, the Righteous and the Retard (produced for the module Film Genres: Stars and Styles), 9 minutes and 11 seconds
Filmmakers: Althea Lew, Gayathri Ayathorai, Loh Hui Ming, Ng Shi Qi, Ramya Veerappan, Syed Atif Husain

Shortlist – Non-fiction

The Broken Porcelain (produced for the module Understanding Modern China Through Film), 8 minutes and 22 seconds
Filmmakers: Dina Berrada, Foo Fang Yu,Wong Siew Fong, Sim Wen Yan, Chua Wei Fang

A Family Affair (produced for the module The Practice of Visual Ethnography), 14 minutes and 8 seconds
Filmmakers: Vanessa Ng, Muhammad Shamil bin Zainuddin, and Shelly Yeo

Gay World Amusement Park (produced for the module Everyday Life of Chinese Singaporeans: Past & Present), 4 minutes and 7 seconds
Filmmaker: Siew Wenqin Daniel

Old Toilets (produced for the module Everyday Life of Chinese Singaporeans: Past & Present), 6 minutes and five seconds
Filmmaker: Tan Shin

About the Judges

Ingrid M. Hoofd is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her research interests are Issues of Representation, Feminist and Critical Theories, and Philosophy of Technology. Her work addresses the ways in which alter-globalist activists, as well as left-wing academics, mobilize discourses and divisions in an attempt to overcome gendered, raced and classed oppressions worldwide, and the ways in which such mobilization are implicated in what she calls ‘speed-elitism.’ Ingrid wrote her Master’s thesis in the Departments of Women’s Studies and Film Studies at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. She has been involved in various feminist and new media activist projects, like AWARE, Indymedia, and NextGenderation.

Ivan Kwek is with the Department of Sociology as a lecturer, teaching courses like Visual Culture, Media and Popular Culture. Trained as an anthropologist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, his work focuses on media production practices in and around the Malay world.  His interest in media is informed by a prior career as a television producer for over 16 years, working mostly in the Current Affairs and Documentary genres. Presently, he is developing his interest in the anthropology of media to consider contemporary interactions among media-related practices, space, memories and communities in a Southeast Asian context.

Valerie Wee lectures on film and media studies in the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore, Singapore. In addition to her research in teen culture and the American culture industries, and Japanese and American horror films, she has published papers on science-fiction films and on issues of gender and representation in the media.

Chris Yeo Siew Hua graduated among the top of his cohort in Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Media Studies, winning the Kodak Singapore Prize for Cinematography and the Cathay Organization Gold Medal. Since then, he has graduated in Philosophy from the National University of Singapore and is a recipient of the Confucius Foundation Award. He wrote and directed short films such as AIK KHOON (in competition for the Silver Screen Awards – Singapore International Film Festival 2005) and WAKING MONKEY (The Substation’s Best Film Award for the Best of First Takes 2007). Apart from producing fiction films, he has also produced a number of documentaries independently and also for broadcast television. He is also an award-winning director of photography for THE BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY PROJECT (2006) and Singapore’s first collaborative feature film LUCKY 7 (2008). His debut film IN THE HOUSE OF STRAW (2009), which he wrote and directed, premiered in competition at the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2009 and was presented at the 34^th Sao Paulo International Film Festival in 2010, lauded by critics as a significant film of the Singapore New Wave. Yeo is one of the founding members of the 13 Little Pictures film collective and is presently holding a directing and producing post in Akanga Film Asia.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to nexus at nus.edu.sg with your full name and affiliation.