Talk to Her
This program features three digital short films by Asian filmmakers. Singapore veteran filmmaker Eric Khoo's NO DAY OFF (39 min) records the life of a maid who leaves her husband and baby for Singapore. Darezhan Omirbayev's ABOUT LOVE (38 min) is a bitter love story based on Anton Chekhov's novel, in which a lonely math teacher falls in love with her married university classmate. Pen-ek Ratanaruang's TWELVE TWENTY (30 min) depicts the encounters of a man and a woman on a long haul flight, where they spend the next twelve hours and twenty minutes reading, drinking, eating and watching movies and sleeping by each other's side, as if they are a married couple.
Also Directed by Eric Khoo
Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. After the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, returns to his birthplace, Singapore.
A painfully shy noodle-shop owner and a prostitute have a chance encounter when destiny arrives in the form of a car accident.
The film depicts 24 hours in a HDB block of residential flats in Singapore. There are three main storylines. San San, fat, silent, and alone, hears the ghost of her mother constantly upbraid her. Ah Gu, a tofu soup vendor, is at odds with Lily, his materialistic immigrant wife, who longs for something he cannot provide. Meng spouts every moralistic bromide of the striving middle class, but is unhinged by his teenage sister May ("Trixie" to her boyfriend) who won't study, parties all night, and seems doomed by youth culture.
An emotive anthology by seven of Singapore's most illustrious filmmakers, celebrating SG50 through the lives and stories of Singaporeans. Directed by Eric Khoo, Jack Neo, K. Rajagopal, Royston Tan, Tan Pin Pin, Boo Junfeng, Kelvin Tong.
The film deals with a young man, following his “endeavors” in the city he lives in, which mostly comprise of him roaming the streets aimlessly. In the beginning, he seems peculiar but still normal, but as the story progresses, the portrait of a sadomasochistic man is revealed quite eloquently.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
Eric Khoo's tv-movie about the relationship between a young girl and her mother with dementia.
"Be with Me" consists of three stories of love vs. solitude: (1) An aging, lonesome shopkeeper doesn't believe in life any more since his wife died. But he is saved from desperation by reading an autobiographical book and meeting its author, a deaf and blind lady of his own age. (2) Fatty, a security guard in his fifties, lives for two things: good food and love for a pretty executive living in his block of flats. But, if it is easy to satisfy his first need winning the heart of the distant belle is a horse of another color. (3) Two teenage schoolgirls get to know each other on the Internet. Soon they fall in love.
Five award-winning ASEAN film directors celebrate Southeast Asian art through this collection of short films. As an omnibus of short films, is inspired by the art collection found at the National Gallery Singapore, Each of the five directors – Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Brillante Mendoza, Eric Khoo, Ho Yuhang and Joko Anwar – handpicked a masterpiece from the 19th and 20th century as inspiration for their short films.
A single dad looks to give up drinking and his bartender job in order to impress his son and find work as a magician.
Also Directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Paradoxocracy, co-directed with Pen-ek's longtime friend and producer, Pasakorn Pramoolwong, begins with the 1932 Siamese Revolution - which transformed Thailand from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one - and works its way to the present day, chronicling the country's major political revolutions, movements and countless coups along the way. Using a combination of archival footage, voice-overs and interviews with 15 unnamed academics, activists and political leaders, the film presents the directors' personal journey to come to an understanding of how their country arrived at its current state of near-constant political division and dysfunction.
A woman, fired from a financial corporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.
A man came to Earth to gather water for his planet. A short made from recycled footage.
A stylish, urban woman and her boyfriend end up as castaways on a deserted island. They meet a rugged hermit, whose solitude and detachment draw them together.
A hitman named Tul is shot in the head during an assignment. When he wakes up from a two month coma Tul discovers that he literally sees everything upside down.
Two rookie soldiers are left at a garrison as other troops head to the city to deal with a protest. Now free, the soldiers smoke, play guitar and go fishing in the country, where they meet a girl.
Pu, a young girl, has been dreaming that her mother, who had died some years before, is building a house. A fortune teller advises her that, should she continue to have this dream, her father will die when the house is completed. Her father, a playboy, is a karaoke regular. He eventually becomes involved with Yok who has connections with the Chinese Mafia. Noi, son of an American soldier who dreams of saving money, is learning English and wants to leave for America. He is in love with Pu, but too shy to reveal his love for her. Pu cannot stop dreaming about the house. Her father's relationship with Yok brings him nothing but bad luck.
A journalist meets with Pob, a Thai ghost, who confesses to a murder. Finally finding an outlet for complaint, Pob explains how the murder happened and requests for his story to be published. However, the journalist declines and the two make a deal of a lifetime.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his days contemplating suicide in his lifeless apartment. His life changes when he witnesses the death of Nid, seconds before he was about to jump off a bridge. This brings him in contact with Nid's elder sister Noi - these two lost and lonely souls help each other find the meaning to their meaningless existences.
Also Directed by Darezhan Omirbayev
Didar, an unrecognized poet, contemplates a rebellious 19th-century poet, executed by the authorities...
Directed by Darezhan Omirbayev.
Kairat, a teacher of mathematics, accidentally meets Aslar, along with whom he studied in university. Askar invites him to his home, where Kairat becomes acquainted with Togzhan, the wife of Askar. And he falls in love with her. Though this love was mutual, they couldn't step over the obstacles already made by their lives. Their emotions delayed. The script is based on the novel by Chekhov's About Love, Gooseberry.
Chouga is a beautiful, rich and beloved young woman. She is thirty and lives in Astana, the Kazak new capital. She is married to a famous scientist in his sixties and has a seven-year-old son. Her brother and sister-in-law live in Almaty. The couple is tearing apart and Chouga’s brother requests her to come and try to bring them back together. There she meets Ablaï, a rich and idle young man whom she strongly feels attracted to. Once back to Astana, Chouga tries to withstand this sensual attraction about which she has a premonition of a tragic outcome.
A filmmaker, Kobessov, awakens from an anxiety nightmare: during the preview of his newest film, the projectionist mixes up the reels and begins to show a bad karate film by accident. Although Kobessov objects to the mix-up, the public is ecstatic and refuses to allow the projectionist to interrupt the screening to show Kobessov's film.
Living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, a young man is preparing to become a bus conductor. One day, in between wandering the city streets, and going to the movies, he makes the acquaintance of a female student.
A roughly faithful adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment," set in Almaty by Kazakh filmmaker Darezhan Omirbayev A stark, Bressonian tale of a young man who commits an almost random act of murder.
A young man gets into an accident and now owes people money. He lives in present day Almaty, Kazakhstan, where jobs are scarce. So he turns to dubious characters for help which leads him deeper and deeper into trouble.
A young boy from Kazakhstan is going to rehabilitation hospital for the summer.