
Singapore Film Database
The Drawing Room & Episodes from Art Studio
Liao Jiekai
2016
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A filmic exploration of the text, characters and narratives from Yeng Pway Ngon's novel, Art Studio. The film meditates on the practice of life drawing, and moves from the snug art studio to the wide corridors of the newly opened National Gallery Singapore. Chapters of Singapore Modern Art adorn the freshly painted walls of the gallery, and conjure stories of the passing generation portrayed in Yeng's Art Studio.
Cold Noodles
Kirsten Tan
2010
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Inspired by an iconic photo of an immigrant eating noodles on a fire-escape by Magnum photographer, Chien-Chi Chang, Cold Noodles is an absurdist black comedy.
Flagrantly tempting Fate by eating ramen on a fire escape in just his underwear on a bitterly cold day in New York. A stray gust slams shut his window, leaving him stranded. He scrambles down to the sidewalk, only to find every door and window locked
- then a body falls out of the sky.
One After Another
Chew Chia Shao Min
2021
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One After Another is a reading of the works in the exhibition Goh Beng Kwan: Nervous City. The film draws from paintings in Goh’s Urban Renewal series: Minaret (1973), In The Clouds There Are Dwellings (1985) and Advertisements (1962–1966). Director Chew Chia Shao Min interprets the nervousness referenced in the exhibition title as a state of longing and anxiety. She uses images of waiting, simmering and engulfment to convey the tension that arises from suppressing charged emotions. In the film, the city becomes a fever dream of discontent as the protagonist and viewer alike are trapped in transitory states—always coming or going, but never arriving.
Chew Chia amplifies the frenetic pace of the urban environment by contrasting images of the city with depictions of stillness in nature. The juxtaposition of these images also highlights the difference between natural shifts such as the onset of decay and changes in weather, and man-made ones experienced in the city. Atmospheric, sensorial and intuitive, One After Another’s exploration of the spiritual overtones infused in textures around us suggests that it is in accepting our insignificance that we can transcend the changes in our environments.