Thriller is well known for it’s cliffhangers and my all time favorite directors that manage to create this was Alfred Hitchcock. Although often overlapped with mysterious stories, the hero in thriller movies have to thwart the plans of the enemy but in Lily, the hero became helpless in the end.

I wasn’t quite sure of the whole storyline at first. Maybe I was trying too hard to make some common sense into it. But the idea of having to be trap in a place where you have to do the same routine over and over again could drive me, or anyone for that matter, up the wall.

Lily was a fictitious character of a television show that felt shackled by the repeated routine she has to do everyday and was dying to be released into reality where she would be “free”. She managed to grab the attention of a television viewer who was sitting on his couch looking rather weary, watching the show. At first in disbelief he then decided to help Lily escape by plugging in his camcorder and pressing the record button only to realize that he will replace Lily’s place in return.

Plot-wise, I thought it was smart in a way but I felt like there could be more to establish Lily’s role in the film and her relationship with the television viewer. But I guess in that moment all he wanted was to free a pretty young lady from her husband and that maybe he wasn’t dreaming after all. I think this could be perfect scare for kids who watch too much television.

Animation helps in creating an illusion of something that may not exists in real life. You may not see a real life colossal robot but only in the movie, Transformers. With animation you can also trick the viewers into thinking that you’re in space when you’re actually standing in front of a green screen. Tuff Questions seemed to be using a lot of that with their background making theirs one of the most unique among many. Using an animated drawn effect background created an illusion of a comic strip. With only one actor in this film, it was easy to focus on the subject matter.

I was almost fully intrigued by the use of an animated background throughout the film. Imagining how the production would look like and how editing could almost be arduous and all of which was done in a short span of 48 hours. It was fascinating to a point where it could end up like Sin City (in a way). The usage of the local slang always makes us laugh or chuckle at how amazingly dense it sounds sometimes but the touch of locality made it more easier to correlate to everyday situation. At one part of the film, the actor was made to play several characters in helping him understand or perhaps helped him imagined what happened during the scene of the crime. I must say, it was believable at some point and it felt as if you were trying to solve the case together with him.

I find that they have cleverly utilized the characters well and have created a film with clear direction that resulted in an intelligent yet witty short piece.

I am not a big fan of television shows on celebrity gossips neither do I want to pry into other people’s secret lives (though it can bring juicy bits of details that are ultimately overly amplified). But considering the nature of my sense of curiosity, I may in the end want to be informed of the latest inside scoop. And for this one, it was as if I was watching a spoof of Entertainment Tonight.

Johnny Axel was a charismatic young man who was initially from a hardcore band, The Zombies. He left to join a rival band, The Scissors after he fell in love with the bassist, Danny and while they performed in their huge concert, Johnny was killed by a pair of scissors that was flung from a waving fan’s hand and into his chest (unreal but the doctor’s testimony made it seemed possible especially with the 3-D graphics illustrating how the scissors punctured his chest and into his heart).

It wasn’t draggy as I assumed it would be but I was ridiculously annoyed with the reporter on how she played such an unconvincing role. But that aside, Beyond the Band was nicely paced (with well written dialogues I must say) and cleverly edited with details such as name headlines, 3-D graphics and a mock television logo that made this mockumentary well strung together.

It was challenging enough to create a short piece in 48 hours but to make it more difficult was the fact that this was collaboration between two countries, Singapore and Australia (Curtin University). With over 35 casts and crew, I applaud this team for being able to produce an amazing job. I bet they’ve fully utilized Skype for this. Kudos to team Seja.

Having seen Jason's '3 Feet Apart' in the Singapore Shorts Collection Volume 1, makes 'Brother No. 2' a leap of a hundred feet from it. '3 Feet Apart' is mind-tickling animation about a character who has a mobile phone growing out of his ear. "Brother No. 2' is no-nonsense digging of history's skeletons. It is straight-forward, it makes its journey clear and there are no attempts to heighten the drama except maybe for the cartoon drawings which seemed a little incongruent with the rest of the film.

'Brother No. 2' won the Dong Bak prize (the top prize) at the 2008 Busan Asian Short Film Festival. The festival is daring in the way it awards prizes and I was a little baffled after watching 'Brother No. 2' because it was a very safe TV-style documentary that broke few grounds, except for one - getting a big historical figure to be in the video.

The documentary, like many Khmer Rouge documentaries gives a voice to the victims and later generations of victims of the genocide that wiped off about 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Soy Sen, a man probably in his 30s is the anchor of the voices and the film. He has lived through a prison camp and returns to his camp to confront one of the prison chiefs whom he believed has been responsible for his father's execution.

If all the merciless torture and persecution mentioned in the history books were true, I began to wonder how the people who persecuted could continue walking around, getting on with their daily lives without back lash from the descendants of the executed. Amidst the more benign post-Rouge surroundings, where Buddhism spreads a veneer of calmness over life, it seemed odd to see these persecutors living side by side with the people they once bludgeoned.

Perhaps this is the workings of a documentary, especially one that involves many talking heads like 'Brother No.2'. Under the untampered, straight-on, natural background shooting style, even the 'villians' of the documentary are humanised. So while, we know the persecutors have done 'bad', they are given the same objective, matter-of-fact presentation. Sometimes, if I don't pay attention, I may lose grip on who's the victim and who's the villian. Perhaps, that's the hidden 'X-factor' in this documentary.

Just to illustrate another example. For reasons unknown (I did not stay for the Q & A), they managed to get a key figure in the Khmer Rouge genocide to appear in the video. His name is Nuen Chea - apparently the second hand man to Pol Pot and the man who released the orders of exection and torture. While the narration psyches us up to face a demon, when Nuen makes his appearance, we see a silver-haired man just enjoying the serenity of retirement in an isolated house. There is a scene of him and his wife enjoying a 3-course lunch delivered to them clearly etched in my mind. He does not speak much. And before the scene was his 'talking head' denying his acts of cruelty. What's unspoken, unmentioned is always more unsettling and that lunch scene had that kind of an effect on me.

While, the documentary scored on various achievements like getting heavy-weights to appear and even following our protagonist Soy Sen faithfully, could have loosened its rules of delivery a little. The entire film is polished in a rather predictable way. It could very easily fit into a Channel NewsAsia programme. Not sure if the producers meant it for that avenue. At its worst, it is a little patronising. While it dug deeply into the story, it could have also dug just as deep into visual imagery that I am sure is abundant in post-war Cambodia. Instead, it used a series of cartoon drawings to illustrate several points, resembling an educational program for students.

The film did come end with something more than a emotional journey. Soy Sen decided that one of the ways to put the matter to rest was to organise a village screening of videos that educated the younger brothers and sisters on the atrocities of the persecutors. Not sure if it will unleash another can of worms, but at least someone's had his say for now.

Was at a friend's home party and got a chance to watch Michael's (Tay) latest short film 'Respirator'. According to Michael, the Q & A at the party was more intense than his screening at Substation.

I have always believed that men should not even think about attempting to decipher the female psyche. They should not write about it in books nor poetry (ever seen a literature class' voracious outroar against John Keats for writing La Belle Dame Sans Merci?) nor make a film about it. Delving into the process of transcribing the female would be like opening Pandora's Box as women's emotions are simply too complicated to be translated into any sort of text.

So you can imagine my surprise to see Alec Tok's 'Big Road' attempt to tell the tales of 3 (random) women in Shanghai: a neglected daughter who was treated like a servant in her own home, a woman who wanders around the central railway station and a barely legal prostitute who later on became the mistress of a very old man.

Whilst the idea of weaving 3 non-related stories together, ala Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys or Love Actually, seems interesting, it proved to be difficult to execute in a succinct manner. The absense of clear lines dividing the stories, merged with the non-linear storyline made the film complicated and the usage of blurry camera effects made it a challenge for the spectator to keep his eyes glued onto the screen.

I thought that 'Big Road' should have been named 'Long Road' instead because that was what watching it felt like: long, langourous and seemingly never-ending. For instance, I saw a number of people going off for a toilet break when the static camera rolled on for 15 minutes, showing one of the protagonists choosing clothes to wear for the day. Women take forever to pick out clothes, we get it already. There's no need to punish the entire cinema for that!

'Big Road' had its plus points despite all that I have ranted about before this. I liked the usage of reccuring motifs such as the hankerchief that was carried by one of the women. It brought a much needed semblance of order in such a chaotic space. I liked the way he incorporated tableaux into the film. I liked the way he juxtaposed the darkness of domestic life with the lightness of running around in the snow. I have to give it to Alec Tok for trying his very best to turn the film into an artistically evocative and rather compelling one despite having picked a difficult subject to focus on.

No action too big or small should underestimate the power of love.

Cultural and ethnic differences, going against parent’s will, finding possibilities in impossibilities, holding on to thin lines of hopes and letting time be their determinant factor. This film shares the intense journey of two young individuals who steps out onto unfamiliar grounds to fight and declare their love despite the hurdles they have or may faced.

The story unfolds and shares one hurdle which the Malay girl and Chinese male have went through to express and fight for their love. As we follow the Malay female through each hurdle she faces, enlarged text messages conversed between both were use to keep the audiences in suspense and to also act as indicators to guide the audience.

In the name of love, she would cross the lines with her family again despite their objections to this relationship. When the taxi has broke down, she would run the miles in order to be there for her man. When her phone was out of battery, it did not stop her from giving up hope and to rush down to the clinic. Even with these multiple closed doors, she stood firm and did not let these hurdles put out the fire of positivity she has uphold for.

Audiences’ suspense were held when the film shows the male sitting nervously in the clinic. Despite him being oblivious to the receptionist’s intense irritation towards him for constantly moving back his appointment, he continued to wait patiently for her. Light humour were use to lighten the film’s mood through the receptionist’s exaggerated signs of irritation that were plastered across the receptionist’s face as she snipped away furiously on a piece of paper.

In every relationship, it does take two to clap, as cliché as it may sound. With her ‘failed’ efforts and pondering on where he is, he appears from behind the stair case in a sarong bottom. As both lifted their heads and began to walk in opposite direction, their eyes met.

For a second, this ending drew an intense and powerful finish as the partners walk towards each other with sudden relief and a mixture of emotions. Their own individual’s fight for this relationship was deem worthy enough, no matter how big or small their sacrifices are. The film ended with a sentence, which underlies the theme of this film, ‘do not give up on them when they have not given up on themselves’, paraphrased. This was followed with a heart warming wrapped up with both individuals dressed in the Malay traditional wear with a young toddler in their arms.

Have you ever been in love and wondered whether actions are justifiable for a person’s representation of love? Have you stay true to your heart and fight for love in determination despite words of stubbornness and naivety thrown at you?

Like this short film:

Love has to be tried to know whether its worth fighting for.

A moment of lust leads a man down the broken path of repents.

With the increase number of marriages in a year, so has the number of affairs. The only noticeable differences are the emotional fruits that reap from them and the various packages people leave with them. One with a smile, the other a broken heart of lies and pain. As far as lust is concerned, the film creates and leaves audience in constant suspense throughout the emotional reflections of the woman. This leads us, the audience, into those painful memories of hers that unleashes the chilling baggages that affairs come along with.

This initial suspense made us seem to follow this woman’s reflections from a ‘hidden camera’ which lures us into following her every action. Our eyes linger around the settings of this seemingly haunted house, those intense seconds of watching the red candles melting slowly infront of the rusty mirrors, her lacy bridal train that sweeps silently against the dusty grey floors and those red full lips and worn out make up. This contrast of a perfect eerie surrounding against a imperfect broken soul within made that the most intense minute.

As we are lured into her chamber of thoughts, the film progressed to further seduce the audience with the ‘cat and mouse game’. A phone call to the married man brought the audiences on another journey of their affair moments and the sweet temptations which both fed each other with. Her raised questions in effort to evoke his memories by bringing him through the trails of their affair; the drifting grey and lustful images of her, the pieces of the missing jigsaw which she answered for him, the lingering of her presence in the house, left the audiences wondering what was she going to reveal next.

“Spohie?” as the married man remembers it all, ‘Click’

As abrupt the ending could be, so were the questionable feelings audiences were left with. That one magical ‘click’ brought us to the end of the film from two sides of the story. The ‘hidden camera’ watched her clutching a snipped photo of him in her hands, “was things supposed to look like that?” as she prepared to let everything go and end her life.

Whereas the married man walks back towards his wife as he appears on the television to give an on-site report of the suicide, totally oblivious to the fact that they once had a affair and just a mere second ago he was on the phone with her.

Despite such abrupt and slightly bizarre ending and realization of the woman’s journey, the film has managed to capture the emotions and baggages that are involved in a affair. As adults, affairs will no longer become a short period of child’s play, a sudden burst of lustful temptations but packages of emotional burdens and the unexpected brokenness.

Like the art of seduction, it tempts and lures you away from reality but when you do wake up, you will find yourself lost in a painful mess of repents.

Forrest Grump says, “Life is like a box of chocolates”, I say ‘Life is a jigsaw puzzle of clues’

‘Crumbs’ is an interesting film that has cleverly plotted subtle clues throughout this detective genre, which develops an unexpected twist at the end. Like the classic children story, ‘Hansel & Gretel’, audiences begin to follow the investigators on cookie trails, which eventually lead them into the killers’ den.

As the film screened for the second time, the planted subtle clues revealed themselves which links directly back to the film title ‘Crumbs’. With an extra attentive eye, minor details like the cookie monster that was placed beside the first victim, scattered crumbs at the first crime scene, the female investigator taking her time to ‘indulge’ the chocolate chip cookie and the cookie crumbs found beside the deceased news reporter were spotted.

Humor was also injected occasionally to soften the mood through words and exaggerated actions. Words like ‘Tick, Tock, your time is up’ coupled with the exaggerated shock reaction, the mischievous scheming look on the news reporter’s face as she tip toes her way to follow the investigators. Some how, every film needs a touch of humor or a pun some where to create that film’s unique touch.

One of my favorite scenes was where both investigators were waiting for the bill. While the male investigator called for the bill, the camera focused on the female investigator’s process of emotions. From the careful bite off the cookie, the facial emotions that flinched slightly during the conversation and the male investigator recovering from the ‘stalker’s message’, captured and intensify the suspense of the film.

Before the audience could suspect some thing amiss, the investigators were off chasing after the waitress. Within a minute, the investigators were left with an empty house, a lost target, a new deceased victim, waiting for back ups and a clueless direction.

“Next, We are Next!”

“….. No, actually you… are… next…”

A partner whom you have been working the case with almost 24/7, the person who has been next you all the time were the answers to the clues. Alone he stood trying to recover from what happened while the waitress snipped and played with the scissors and the female investigator’s eerie smirk marks the unexpected ending of this film.

Even though the clues in the film were not spotted the first time, the ending made up for it. Like the film, as we try to find the reasons and answers behind questions, we tend to forget that the answers were right underneath our nose.

Friendships are like wine, it takes time and nurture for the details to be aged beautiful.

A simple film with the main focus on the meaning of friendships and the different stages in life friends goes through together. This film brought me on the road of reminiscing my younger days where friendships meant the world to me, more than any other thing in the world.

The film progressed nicely in the beginning with one of the scene that summarised friendship in a nutshell. After a failed attempt in robbing people, both friends sat down to let this matter dissolve while having a good laugh about how their strengths make up for the other’s weaknesses. With that fate sealed, they were motivated once again to make the next attempt successful. The highlight of this scene for me was when they playfully used a pack of cigarettes to serve as a reward for the winning party. The visible innocence in these two men amidst the complicating environment reminded me of those younger days, where challenges and decisions were made without realising the long term risk involved. Like a life journey, we tend to make mistakes and never learn from them.

With that motivation and the will to survive, both men set foot for their next attempt. Even though the linkage of events here was slightly disrupted, the ending made up for it.

This leads to my second favourite scene in the film, with the camera focused on just the hand and the mobile phone against the grey background and messy table. The friend made that faithful phone call with reluctance to break the news before flinging it onto the table. The other friend appeared on the evening news screaming and challenging the ‘public’ “was it suppose to look like that?”. As illustrated in this handcuffed scene, this highlights how, at a certain stage in life, people will begin to understand that luck is a variable factor which tends to run out.

As simple the film was it brought out a straightforward message for me. Despite the bitter sweet reminiscence of our younger days throughout the movie and our basic understanding of what friendships were about in those biological ages, the film also became a reflection of the current.

Some times as we move on to another chapter in lives, we tend to forget the meaning of friendships and only seeking solace in it when people desperately needs a listening ear. On those clear days, we are just two humans busy with our separate lives.

Instead, maybe we can try to engrave in our minds that true friends are like our life journey partners where we are a part of each other’s life at all stages of it.

Desperate times sure seem to bring about desperate means.

A film narrated through the conversations between technologies and uses comic satire to highlight and question the actions of humans. By the end of the film, it leads the audience, at least myself, to reflect on our lives and our actions in the current world of technologies through the technologies’ opinions and audiences’ reflection on the actors’ course of actions.

There were two major scenes that highlight how humans were willing to achieve their end results by all means, even if it was to question personal integrity and crossing the lines of professionalism. Another point which the film highlighted was how humans failed to realised they are the fallen preys of technologies rather than owners of technologies.

In the first half of the film, it shows the lead actor, a successful journalist sourcing for interesting stories online so as to create ‘top stories’ to boost his falling readership. Just like most upcoming and inspiring stars, his refusal to conform to the society’s interest of “sex sells” affected his readership numbers.

His first “story” took place at a retail shop with the joint effort from his sympathetic younger sister. She created a commotion with the patient retailer within the nicely decorated retail shop where she demanded a cash refund on a shirt that she bought nearly a month ago. As things turned ugly with the retailer flaring up on this ‘innocent’ school girl, out pops the brother with his dependent video recorder threatening to broadcast the retailer’s bad service attitude while being dragged away by the embarrassed sister.

The film led audiences to the first questions of whether the siblings’ actions were morally appropriate when the scene unfolds in the room where the siblings discussed their next course of actions. Concurrently, the technologies were having a similar debate on whether their assistance in his videos were right or wrong. As the film develops, it slowly revealed the contrasting roles and personalities that the technologies represent; camera phone, the conscience one and the video camera, the “free spirited” one.

The use of humour in scenes was cleverly injected between conversations to hide the subtle sarcasm and critiques of the brother’s actions, a reflection on our current society. An example was where the scissors told the gadgets to be thankful for not doing a physical dirty job like his, trimming the nose hair.

Tension heightens when the brother decided to embark on his second story, a scandalous ‘making out session’ of his underage innocent sister and her adult boyfriend captured on video. A professional who used to value his integrity became a fallen man over night as he succumbs to the society’s interest by preparing to upload this captured ‘sex’ video without any sense of guilt.

The camera phone’s realisation amidst the twist in events led it to take the plunge. As he slowly edges to the end of the book pile, he reflected on how this journalist use to be a morally just man and wondered whether things were supposed to look like that now. Even as the video camera joked about the camera phone’s decision and asked him to take things as a joke, this highlighted one of the film’s messages, from my perspective.

The camera phone, which may not know the world’s ways of life, actually knew the difference between being morally just and the consequences of living a life of remorse for such despicable acts.

A witty mix and match of every day’s technologies, use of subtle sarcasm and mockery to criticise our human ways in this film brought a refreshing change of perspectives. Highlighting of how hum

ans could stoop this low to satisfy society’s demands in order to achieve something for own personal gain without considering the consequences that comes along with it allowed audiences to do a personal reflection.

Personally, this short film is more than just a simple and slight humorous film. It has managed to subtly highlight the serious issues currently in our society by cleverly integrating them into the technologies’ conversations.

Some times a person who observes these issues will feel a pang of pity and sadness when they observe how these talented people have no idea that they have been blinded by their goals and failed to know which actions are right or wrong anymore. Eventually, they fell prey to these helpful technologies without being aware of it.

Amy Yeo is an abused woman in the 48 hr film competition. She gets overworked by TV news stations and has to go through so many different guises. Well, I am not talking about a real person. I am talking about a character each of the 48 hr film competition teams must use in their 5 min film. The other must-have element is a pair of scissors.


The 48 hours film competition is really making the audience crack their heads in voting. Production values have gone up compared to the previous year. The teams come in sizes of 10 -15 in some. And hence, the hige audience support as seen here is wholly justified.


Before we bring you some of the reviews, here is an adulterated account of what a team went through.


"I was able to source and confirm a few talents 2-3 days before the event. .............................Friday,by 9pm, we had all gathered back in my office where a group of us gathered to brainstorm and write a story............................ We took pictures of our acting talents and used their mugshots for inspiration. .............................At around 2am, we got some sleep in the office and got ready to leave for our shoot at 9am in the morning............Saturday, we decided to do everything in one location.................................We needed some last minute extras and I managed to get my dad on board. Shooting continued for the whole day and finally concluded at 9pm at my flat. I then proceeded to do a rough cut of the film before sleeping at 4am..........Sunday, I had a team of 2-3 editors/post-production people including me ...............................By 6pm, my director finally finished his edit and we then had to down convert the footage from HD to SD. That unfortunately took us 1.5 hours and by the time we left the office for Tisch Asia (the drop off point) it was already 7:45pm...................We made it with 23 mins to spare and successfully dropped off the film."


- Andrew Yu, Vanguard