The Design Film Festival may be over, and you may or may not have gotten tickets this time around, but either way, there are no less than six (!) film festivals to catch in Singapore before the end of the year, including, of course, the back-with-a-bang Singapore International Film Festival (which, prior to its reprise last year, had been on hiatus). Here’s what to book.
Taiwan Documentary Showcase (Oct 2-3)
Taiwan has been picking up a bunch of international awards lately for its documentaries. This showcase highlights three of the country’s recent and pretty arty offerings: The Moment: Fifty Years of Golden Horse, a retrospective about Taiwan’s esteemed film festival; A Life That Sings, a creative non-fiction biopic about influential Taiwanese poet Ya Hsien; and River Without Banks about war and the poetry of Lo Fu.
23rd Israel Film Festival (Oct 21-27)
There’s a woman-focused theme this year, and on the roster are films like Zero Motivation, Tayla Lavie’s dramedy about female soldiers completing their military service (with a post-screening discussion); GETT – A Trial of Viviane Amsalem, about a woman’s five year-long struggle to get a divorce in a rabbinical court; and The Good Son, about a young transgendered woman, who unbeknownst to her parents, is getting gender reassignment surgery.
The Women in Film & Photography Showcase (Oct 22- Nov 29)
Comprising a photography exhibition and various film screenings, this all-female festival touches on issues like loneliness, gender stereotyping, culture and identity. Film highlights include Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee Megane by Naoko Ogigami, about an uptight city professor on vacation; and short film Singapore Panda by Sun Koh, in which two radio professionals develop a play about the mass immigration of Chinese pandas to Singapore. No prizes for guessing what that’s a metaphor for.
Cinema Haute Couture (Oct 28)
In conjunction with Digital Fashion Week, the Alliance Francaise is screening two films: Madamoiselle C, a kind of French version of The September Issue, dealing with Carine Roitfeld, the former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief, by Fabien Constant who will do a Q&A session, as well as William Klein’s Who are you Polly Maggoo?, a satirical film making fun of fashion’s excesses.
19th German Film Festival (Nov 5-15)
22 films will be screened for the first time in Singapore at this festival. Focusing on the theme “search for identity”, WWII drama Phoenix and award-winning thriller Victoria are on the roster. There’s also an eight-film retrospective of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s work. Tickets TBA.
Singapore International Film Festival (Nov 26-Dec 6)
It’s back two years in a row (which is a good sign). We don’t know much about the line-up yet, but we do know that the new National Gallery will be one of the pretty new venues, and that there will be screenings of two beloved Singaporean films: Eric Khoo’s Mee Pok Man and Taiwanese director Yonfan’s film, Bugis Street, about transvestites and transsexuals living in 1960s Bugis Street. Tickets TBA.
