Archive for February 2014

This Sunday, the 86^th Academy Awards will be announced and the world of film, with its ardent fans, will be celebrating (and lamenting) losses and wins. Explanation for this is somewhat needless; the Oscars (pet name for the Academy Awards – a disputed title with unresolved history but for the sake of this article be used interchangeably) is undeniably one of the most prestigious awards for film; it does for film what the Grammys do for music and Tonys do for theatre. And awards, even in domains where quality is subjective, such as art, do much for the human reward system, motivating film-makers to create better works in bid to win the esteem titled of nominee or winner of said prize.

The Oscars were first given out in 1929, and the ceremony has been broadcasted subsequently from 1930. There are five nominees in each category, and there are up to 25 categories, of which the Best Foreign Film Award which Singapore has contested for will be further analyzed in this article. Films which call themselves Academy award nominees are also recognized to have been submitted from 1956 onwards as there were no nominees from 1947 to 1955 when there was only a single wining Best Foreign Film per year.

Nominees for the Best Foreign Film category are determined through a two-step process which sees several hundred Los Angeles based Academy members screen the original submissions and pick the top six, then three additional selections are voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language film award executive committee, leading to a shortlist of nine films, which will be announced to the public. At a later date, these nine films will be narrowed down to five nominees, earning the spot as contenders for the award.

A foreign language film is defined as a feature length motion picture produced outside the United States of America with a predominantly non-English dialogue track. Singapore geographically distant from the States, with its four official languages finds itself contending for Best Foreign Film award due to obvious reasons. Having submitted seven films since 1959, Singapore had yet to pick up a nomination. Most recently, Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen which won the Golden Horse award for Best Picture, undisputedly Singapore’s best bet in so far, failed to make nomination as well. Ironically, it had inched out The Grandmaster for the Golden Horse Award, but The Grandmaster managed to get shortlisted for the Oscar.

So, what are the chances of Singapore ever winning a Best Foreign Film Oscar? We look in a few directions. First, looking at how Asian films have performed through the years, as well as the type of foreign films which have won at the Oscars might help us understand this better.

Out of sixty-five awards handed out by the Academy since 1947 to foreign films, fifty-two have gone to European films, five to Asian films, three to African and three to films from the Americas. French, Italian, German language films take top spots for having the highest nominations in the sixty-five year span. By rule of probability, it comes to no surprise that the Italian and French language films consist of a large portion of winning entries at ten out of sixty five and thirteen out of sixty five submissions respectively.

Perhaps due to a slower start in participation (other than Japan), Asian films from countries such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea have not had much of a presence in the nominations list. Japan heads the Asian film pack with twelve nominations and four wins having actively participated right from the beginning of the Academy Awards and Taiwan lags behind at one win in 2000. The most recent win by an Asian country, Departures by Japan in 2009 is a Japanese drama film which concerns the historic ceremony of mortification. Not surprisingly, many other winners and nominees of the BFF have also been dramas encompassing elements of history. Could this possibly be a winning genre?

Here is more food for thought. What we have here are two tables describing the language and genre of films which got nominated or won, for these six years

Language of nominated and winning films for the Academy’s BFFA from 2007 to 2012

Language	Nominated	Winners
German	13.3%	16.67%
Russian	3.3%
Hebrew	9.9%
Polish	6.6%
Mongolian	3.3%
Japanese	3.3%	16.67%
Spanish	13.3%	16.67%
French	23.3%	16.67%
Danish	6.6%	16.67%
Greek	3.3%
Persian	3.3%	16.67%
Dutch	3.3%
Norwegian	3.3%
Arabic	3.3%

Nominated and winning films’ genres for the Academy’s BFFA from 2007 to 2012

Film Genre	Nominated	Winner
Drama	70%	83.3%
Historical/Epic	10%
War	3.3%
Crime	10%	16.7%
Biopic	3.3%
Documentary	3.3%

From the above findings, French language films have been the most popular nominee in the past six years. Also, although film genres overlap (e.g.: crime films are sometimes sub-categories of dramas), the above classification has been done noting the general story plot as well as the category its film-makers listed it under. Therefore, the drama film genre is undisputedly the most common genre nominated for the BFF. This observation is similar to that of critics of the Best Picture Award; that dramas, non-fiction war films and biopics generally perform better for such competitions.

To get more of an industry viewpoint, we spoke to Juan Foo, who has made and produced several Singapore films and was part of the Singapore film resurgence in the 1990s. According to him, the Oscars tend to look for foreign films that represent the zeitgeist of the country and the quality of the country’s filmmaking culture. They may also look for some form of strong cultural and societal resonance of the country.

So who has been selecting these Singapore submissions over the last few years? According to Juan, a lot of mystery remains how the recent Singapore entries have been submitted. However, he offers his perspective on what could be an ideal way to select.

‘Anthony's ILO ILO seems to come the closest in contemporary Singapore cinema that seems to universally capture international attention and domestic curiosity. Perhaps this is a small but significant coming-of-age milestone for Singapore cinema as a cultural product to be taken seriously from all sides. And these 'sides' being - International scrutiny from a sense of sovereign branding, artistic achievement in World cinema, and general audience reception. Sovereign branding, for lack of a better phrase, is really about cultural, societal and heritage representation in cinema from a nation's perspective. World cinema achievement is more talent driven and a nod to anthony chen himself first as a filmmaker, and then as a Singaporean achieving accolades and recognition. The general audience reception, international, regional and local, is a yardstick of resonance and engagement. If we can somehow triangulate these three perspectives, into an approach to select Singapore's representation to international film awards such as the oscars, I think there is a possibility that we can 'pre-select' our own representative to the oscars and satisfy everyone ?

Let us also be aware our cinematic maturity and market is very fledging, still. A few years ago i was asked in IS magazine what was THE quintessential Singapore film, and I replied that there probably isn't one yet as we can really still building critical mass. So without a critical mass of good films it would be a simple mathematical challenge to select something that best represents Singapore. The sampling is pool is so small. Filmmakers who want to make culturally significant films should just doggedly continue and Singapore should do their best to support them.’

While Anthony’s film did not get into the final 5 nominees list, it has certainly made a winning trail in the film festival circuit, picking up awards like the Cannes Camera d’Or and Golden Horse Awards. In the same vein, Pieta by celebrated Korean director Kim Ki Duk bagged the Golden Lion but failed to make nomination for the Oscars. Elite Squad failed to make the final Oscar shortlist, but won the Golden Bear in 2008 and was a huge commercial success and made a cultural phenomenon in its home ground. The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa nabbed the Golden Bear but did not win the Oscar though it was nominated.

The global film festival circuit certainly gives filmmakers enough of a reason not give a damn about Hollywood. And Hollywood does not always see eye to eye with the rest of the world. Here is an interesting look at how Best Foreign Film Oscar winners in the last few years fared in reaching for the golden palms, bears and lions. Some stood less tall than others outside the Oscars.

Year it won BFF Oscar	Film Title	Other notable awards won
2007	The Counterfeiters	-
2008	Departures	32^nd Montreal World Film Festival – Grand Prix des Amériques
		17^th Golden Rooster Award – Best Picture
		29^th Hong Kong Film Award – Best Asian Film
2009	The Secret in Their Eyes	-
2010	In a Better World	68^th Golden Globe Award – Best Foreign Language Film
2011	A Separation	61^st Berlin International Film Festival –Golden Bear for Best Film
2011	A Separation	69^th Golden Globe – Best Foreign Language Film
2012	Amour	65^th Cannes Film Festival –Palme d’Or (Golden Palm)
		70^th Golden Globe – Best Foreign Language Film

Will Singapore ever clinch the coveted Oscars? Maybe people should stop asking that question. In the spirit of art, it would be hilarious to imagine Singapore submitting a film tailored for the Oscars’ preference in terms of its genre and language. On an ending note, Juan adds,’Winning awards seriously should NOT be the reasons Singapore filmmakers make films. If that is the sole purpose and drive, then it is a motive of pure egoism, which detracts from the purposes of cinema and shared cultural phenomena in the first place’.

Singapore's 2007 submission by Royston Tan

Singapore's 2008 submission by Eric Khoo

Singapore's 2011 submission by Eric Khoo

Singapore's 2012 submission by Michelle Chong

Michael Haneke walks away with the Best Foreign Film Award for 'Amour' at the 85th Academy Awards

By Jeremy Sing & Gwen Xu

Written by SINdie

Randy Ang's "re: solve" has been marketed as Singapore's very first action thriller film and presents a welcome break to the low stakes action of Chinese New Year film. SINdie catches up with Randy Ang ,the director himself, and Jimmy Wong, the executive producer, to tell us more about the creative decisions involved in the making of the film and how it has contributed to Singapore's film vocabulary.

Synopsis

Serious Crimes Unit Inspector Chen Shaoqiang (Chris Lee Chih Cheng) tries to figure out a series of daring armed heists and seemingly unrelated murders. Shaoqiang must revisit his troubled past as a member of the elite Special Tactics Unit, after a botched raid seven years earlier that shattered the unity of his team, taking the life of his mentor Wu Tianle (Sunny Pang). The resulting cover up destroys his relationship with Tianle’s sister Wu Qizhen (Mico Chang Wei Chun).

Shaoqiang’s past collides with the present, as heists are targeted at financial firm BWB Capital, where Qizhen and another former team mate, Wang Zhengming (Jimmy Wong), now work. Shaoqiang, and his new partner Yan Yongcheng (Yuan Shuai), must race against the clock to the catch the perpetrators as the heists escalate into a tense hostage situation, where the stakes not only involve the nation’s security, but also the lives of his friends.

Why do you think it has taken so long for a Singaporean Action Crime Thriller to be made when countless of crime television dramas have been aired?

Firstly, anyone who has attempted to make a film here will realise the difficulties for any independent production to obtain the required clearances and permits to shoot. Even more so for one that involves explosives and gun firing. We are blessed with a team that never gave up that fight. Much like the spirit of what the film represents. When we were all geared up and we know what we want to achieve - we never took "no" for an answer.

And secondly it is the believably of the situation. We tried to create a suspended reality that focuses not on the country as a country but as the backdrop of a striving Asian cosmopolitan city. The language, the styling and backdrop became a bit poised and deliberate. This of course became a double edged sword because some audiences who wanted something grounded in a lot of reality found it difficult to connect with the characters. But for those we just let go and enjoy it as intended, they will just sit back and enjoy the ride.

How do you balance between depicting dramatic emotional scenes and action sequences?

We didn't want to do action for the action's sake. The action has to be connected to the characters. Everything is relative. A shot fired in the past can haunt someone in the present. That's the way I see it. A lot of things to do with karma and repercussions.

How did you choreograph the action sequences, what difficulties did you face?

The fight choreography was done by Sunny Pang, who has another role as one of the main cast. The tactical movement was choreographed by Douglas Lam and the stunt team from DASH. The first and foremost consideration was safety and that will also be the last consideration.

The actors and the stunt team went through weeks of training and conditioning. Jimmy Wong, who plays Wang Zengming, went through three months of intensive training with Sunny and lost 27kg as a result. It wasn't all attributed to the training but also his personal determination in case you are thinking of taking on Sunny's diet course.

The movie looks expensive, mind telling us how much it costs to produce?

The production value is about 1.2million dollars, which seems likes a lot. But it is actually close to the price tag of most high end locally made dramatic narrative films, maybe just a little more. It is no way near to anything in the established Asian markets.

The team really tried to stretch as much as they can with the production to try to deliver a style and positioning that is different. Jack Tan, our Director of Photography and the camera crew really tried to pushed the envelope and really delivered some truly breathtaking cinematography. Alistair Chang, the gaffer, and the lighting crew were also very inspired well over the course of the production to achieve something unique. In fact, every department - Art, Wardrobe, Makeup and Production - really pushed each other towards a common vision to create something magical and that we can be proud of.

What is the reason behind the stylization of the English title "re: solve"?

Haha, glad you've asked. Firstly, it wasn't intended to be that way. Just simply - resolve. But it was very close to a name of another film on IMDB.

We've got the really cool Chinese calligraphy done and wanted to insert the English title in to form a visible title block. Graphically, it felt more balanced to split the word.

Then it felt like "RE:" - when you type a letter. So you can read now read the English title in two ways.

So the English title became a little bit more cryptic and that can relate to the thematic continuity of a crime thriller. We like to keep details like these.

Does anyone involved in the production have prior firsthand experience with the Singapore Police or Defense Force? How did you keep the roles of the policemen authentic?

I was an Inspector in the Police Force during my National Service. But authenticity wasn't something we were striving for. But more so the morality code and the spirit of the Police officer.

We edited the film with Iceberg Design and made the offline cut in Malaysia. The comments received there was, your cops are more gentlemanly than other countries. That's really true... And I guess that was the spirit I was talking about. We may be gentlemen; but we are also no pushovers.

How do you make the conflict uniquely Singaporean in such a way that it is difficult to alter the context (for example, setting the movie in a seemingly triad-infested Hong Kong)?

Hong Kong is not really triad-infested in the way we have been viewing it on screens for so many years. I feel really safe walking in the colourful streets even deep into the night in HK. It is just that they have taken so much liberties with it for so long.

We do have murders and kidnappings here. It is white collar crimes that defines us; and we really challenged writers Olivia Loh and Matthew Roy Ing to be able to create a scenario that has to be carefully calculated, very deliberate and smart and done with certain swagger.

Do you hope to break new grounds in the Singapore film industry with this movie?

I didn't want to think that far. We just strive to do the best we can, when given the chance. Personally, I hope to see us really try more genres. Offer the variety so that audiences can really have a choice of works to Like and Unlike. We cannot make everyone like us and what we do.

And the talent here is really ripe. We just need more opportunities to create new concepts.

What do you hope the audience would take away from watching this movie?

Never accept "No" if you believe it is right.

Catch re: solve in theaters from 27 Feb 2014 and check out its Facebook page.

Trailer for re:solve

Written by SINdie

After sharing with everyone the beauty of his short film ‘Colours’ back in 2006, director Derrick Lui is now back with a new film ‘1400’. With ‘When Night Fa11s’ as a loose prequel to this up-coming film, Derrick is ready to share this new journey with us.

Done in a different style from his previous films, 1400 will be a film with four stories being told instead of the usual one. Derrick explained this fresh direction for this project: “In the early days of my career at MTV Asia, I digged fast cuts and fast motion stuff. However, as I grew older, my work evolved and my style became ‘slower’. Think that’s the difference, haha.”

About seeking for love and little snippets of life, the audience can see the interwoven stories of the seven characters unfold on screen in a hotel as they go through different phases of their lives and meet the different people that impact them in their never-ending search.

“I came up with the concept after being surrounded by friends who have gone through heaven and hell in their relationships. Some couples broke up, some divorced. I have been some sort of uncle agony ever since my school days,” shared Derrick, who spent five years coming up with the concept and polishing it.

1400 is a compilation of his own observations about love from his friends. Told from his point of view, he hopes that the film will connect with the audience and that they will understand, appreciate and go home to spend more time with their loved ones.

So what are his personal thoughts about love?

“I think Love is something very sacred. Something that every living being in this world needs. Love can exist between, couples, family and friends. Love is the most precious intangible thing we can ever have,” Derrick told us thoughtfully.

After all the hard work and planning, filming is almost complete and this is definitely a dream come true for the director and anticipating fans of his work. However, there were hardships to overcome and that delayed the production of this project such as a lack of script. But the most difficult obstacle, as Derrick shares with us, will be money.

“The process has been fun, but more difficult and more hectic than I could ever imagine. Main problem being no budget, which results in no time. So I’m director, producer, coordinator, location manager etc all in one!”

Tiring but a satisfying journey, Derrick hopes the final product will reach out to audiences and bring these five points across: that love is not about possession, true love is unconditional and hard to come by, to treasure loved ones especially when they are still around and last but not least, that it may be best to let go sometimes.

To follow up on up-dates to find out more or to support the film 1400, do go onto their Facebook page to ‘Like’ it as well as their website and keep yourself in the loop of this homegrown film that promises to touch your heart and keep your mind thinking.

Article written by Teo Dawn

Photo credits: Derrick Lui

Written by SINdie

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