Another year, another celebration. 2025 marked Singapore’s 60th year since independence. Under the banner SG60, a slew of events, concerts, public performances, exhibitions, sports tournaments, fireworks displays, free vouchers, discounted hotel staycations, etc, were rolled out to commemorate the occasion.
Taking its cue from the superlative anthology film, 7 Letters, occasioned by the monumental SG50 events in 2015, a similar anthology was produced under the title, Kopitiam Days. Both anthologies feature seasoned and rising filmmakers in whose individual segments offer a snapshot of the state of Singapore cinema. This time round there are six segments directed by Yeo Siew Hua, Shoki Lin, M. Raihan Halim, Tan Siyou, Don Aravind and Ong Kuo Sin respectively.
The segments run the gamut of genres. There’s a wuxia action-comedy (Yeo Siew Hua), a realist drama about a Chinese opera practitioner and her patron (Shoki Lin), a sci-fi tinged family drama involving an old lady and a robot (M. Raihan Halim), an artful slice-of-life vignette about a girl’s feelings about home while studying in Amsterdam (Tan Siyou), a period star-crossed romance set in the 1980s (Don Aravind), and an inter-generational drama revolving around a lost coin-operated phone (Ong Kuo Sin). The titular kopitiam (a local term for coffeeshop) bookends the segments as a key location for the segments. Three of the six filmmakers also had feature films released in 2025.
An increasingly prolific Ong Kuo Sin returned with two Chinese-language feature films. Number 2 is a sequel to 2020’s surprise drag-queen all-out comedy hit, Number 1, and on the other side of the coin, A Good Child, is a surprisingly well-calibrated melodrama about the relationship between a mother and her son who happens to be a drag performer. These two films suggest a burgeoning LGBTQ market across Asia, and they cast visibility on a previously shunned topic in Singapore.
M. Raihan Halim is drawn to underdog stories as evidenced in his debut feature Banting (2014) where a girl must overcome the consternation of her strict Muslim family in pursuit of her passion, professional wrestling, and in La Luna (2023), where religious orthodoxy is pitted against liberal values when the opening of a lingerie shop stirs up Ealing-style comedic situations in a hapless community dominated by moral authorities. In his new film Badak, we find an aspiring hip-hop artist navigating demanding inter-generational trauma to break into the treacherous music industry in Kuala Lumpur. Eschewing the broad humor of the previous films, Raihan delivers a comparatively naturalistic tale of self-discovery and familial connection fueled by propulsive hip-hop numbers.
In the same vein of youthful rebellion, but more overtly so, is Tan Siyou’s debut feature film, Amoeba. Set in a fictional elite all-girls school ominously named Confucius’ Girl’s School, a new transfer student Choo Xin Yu, finds camaraderie and friendship in the company of a trio of like-minded classmates. The school’s authoritarian stance pervades all facets of school life, giving this quartet of misfits plenty of fodder to rebel against.
With each act of defiance, the girls gain a piece of themselves, something more precious than anything in the world for adolescents on the cusp of adulthood. To insulate themselves against the ever-oppressive nature of their reality, the girls make a pact and swear allegiance to each other in the style of the Chinese triads. On hand to guide them through the world of secret societies is a family friend, Uncle Poon, played by none other than Taiwanese actor, Jack Kao, who has been seen in numerous gangster movies since the late 1980s.
A misplaced video camera containing footage of their time together is found by a teacher, leading to a temporary suspension for all of them. In most films, this incident would signal the inevitable fracture of the relationship between the girls. But no, life goes on as the girls prepare to stick together after graduation by going to the same junior college. This is when the cracks start. What eventually splits their world apart is something more real. The girls find themselves grappling with contradictory notions of social class, aspirations, parental expectations, and ideals for the future. A well-meaning lie by one of the girls sends this house of cards tumbling down, and Choo, who relies on the group more than the others, finds herself facing the future alone.
August saw the sudden closure of The Projector, a beloved independent cinema catering to art and off-season film screenings, after 12 years of operation. In September, Cathay Cineplexes ceased operations after 86 years in Singapore. Parent company Mm2 cited high overhead costs, competition from streaming platforms, and not being able to fully bounce back after the Covid-19 pandemic as some of the main reasons for its recent losses.
In an interesting development after the closures, the chairman of the Singapore Film Society announced in December that in collaboration with Golden Village (one of two surviving commercial cinema operators), the film society will be curating screening programmes on Fridays to Sundays in one of the Golden Village owned theatres along Orchard Road. The first of two titles to receive distribution in this manner is an obscure 1979 Taiwanese film, The Fellow Who Rejected College, chosen by the chairman in the spirit of indulgence. He claimed to have watched it 49 times! The other film is Michael Kam’s The Old Man and His Car. A senior lecturer at the School of Film and Media Studies in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Michael Kam spent over 20 years making short films and making preparations for this, his debut feature film. A tale of a lonely man having to part with his prized Mercedes sedan, Kam imbues the film with a surface stillness while developing a torrent of emotions in the background which erupt like volcanic sprays of molten lava.
All this is buoyed by veteran actor Lim Kay Tong’s performance as Hock, the old man in the title. He personifies a wholly local archetype – men past their prime who have spent a good part of their lives working in the service of the country, and whose vernacular of choice is English with a smattering of local dialect. Of particular interest is Hock’s interactions with the various characters he encounters as he tries to sell his car. Adding to the sense of isolation and disconnection, most of them do not speak the same language. When he meets the English-speaking June (Kristin Tiara), he can finally let down his guard and work towards some form of reconciliation with his past.
Perhaps it is not as noticeable to foreign audiences, but the manner of speech and the choice of languages (Singapore has four official languages) often make or break a Singaporean film. The work that goes into the creation of a cinematic reality can easily be undone by an ill-chosen phrase and the manner of delivery. This is especially so for films striving to represent a wholly Singaporean reality. In this regard, none of the films this year comes close in replicating a Singaporean experience. For that, one must look to local documentaries.
Although it is true that documentaries are meant to reproduce reality, one that captures genuine authenticity in gestures and words remains a rare occurrence. So it was thrilling to encounter such a film. Coda follows an alumni choir group, the Victoria Chorale, as they prepare to compete at an international choir festival. The fact that the director Jac Min is also part of the choir allows the documentary full access to rehearsals, performances and outside life.
The thrill of the film does not come from the tense moments which lead up to the competition, but from experiencing the barrage of voices and real life gestures it captures. It demonstrates the adage, “Cinema is truth 24 frames per second.”
Warren Sin