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By Park Hyun Young |
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Man
does not live on bread alone. Let alone an Asian
man with Asian taste.
But if Singapore-made movies are to your liking,
you’ll find that the menu on offer has
been widened these days. And the quality is
as good as anything Hollywood has to offer.
It’s with this intention
that the Cine.sg’s three-month
long showcase of Singaporean movies was launched
at the National Museum. A gluttonous feast for
the eyes, Cine.sg is a festival of
14 old and new Singaporean movies which, collectively,
show the advancements made in the scene over
the past decade. This is especially the case
with Singapore-made documentaries.
Given the lack of talent and education available
then, it would’ve been unimaginable that
young filmmakers would go all the way to remote,
war-torn villages to produce a documentary film,
let alone one that’s of high quality to
sweep awards at prestigious film festivals over
the world.
But it’s happening now,
with the documentary Passabe (2006).
Named after a remote district of Timor Leste
where it was shot, directors Lynn Lee and James
Leong document a candid visual recording of
the lives of several Passabe residents, five
years after the nation’s violent struggle
for independence from Indonesia.
The drama unfolds from the confessions of a
former militia member involved in the war crimes.
It also chronicles the way in which the community
has come to terms with past traumas.
Since its release, Passabe
has received nominations at acclaimed film festivals
in Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Melbourne and Kuala
Lumpur. It also won Hong Kong’s 2006 Humanitarian
Award for Documentaries.
Another documentary on a similar
topic, A Hero’s Journey (2006),
directed by Grace Phan, was named one of top
three documentaries at its world premiere at
the Sydney Film Festival. It has since secured
cinematic releases in Australia and New Zealand.
Both documentaries were applauded for their
unbiased account of history, with deeper understanding
of the subject matter than if they were made
by Westerners.
However, it’s ironic that such well-made
films premiered overseas first before being
screened in Singapore. The reason behind this
is that local distributors often doubt the feasibility
of the films in the market – a reasonable
assumption, given that audiences here tend to
favour Hollywood blockbusters.
Perhaps you may be able to make the difference
today by heading off to the National Museum
and seeing for yourself one of such works.
Park Hyun Young is a second-year
student under the BA (Hons) Arts Management
programme at LASALLE College of the Arts.
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