Philippine director Brillante 'Dante' Mendoza's Slingshot dominated Singapore's Silver Screen Awards, walking away with best film, best director and the NETPAC award.

Actress Inessa Kislova won best performance for Abai Kulbai's coming-of-age tale Swift while Abdellatif Abdelhamid's Syrian comedy Out of Coverage received a special jury award at the ceremony organised by the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) on Sunday night.

The 21st edition of the festival has taken on two new core members, including Jasmine Ng as a board director and Wahyuni Hadi as festival manager. Their appointments came about after the departure of long-time board directors Lesley Ho and Teo Swee Leng.

This year's festival saw the larger participation of young local filmmakers who helped as cinema volunteers and put up events.

'It's encouraging and heartwarming,' said Philip Cheah who continues as festival director.

'They have realised that if they want the festival to be around, they've to rally behind it.'

As with past editions, the festival is run on a tight budget which has been further reduced to a mere $370,000 (S$500,000). Citibank was the biggest sponsor while the National Museum of Singapore and Media Development Authority of Singapore were one of the main sponsors.

Despite the low budget, the festival organised networking parties for the first time to build on community spirits.

The first-ever Singapore Panorama served as a showcase of diversity of 14 new local documentaries and features shot across the world in China, Hong Kong, Iran, Japan and Singapore. Many of the screenings attracted a full house, including Lucky 7, Women Who Love Women: Conversations In Singapore and 18 Grams Of Love.

Two new cinema venues, Sinema@Old School and Republic Polytechnic, were added to reach out to a new generation of film-goers. About 42% of all the ticketed screenings were sold out.

The festival was involved in a new initiative in collaboration with the National Museum to acquire films for the latter's archive. These include two Vietnamese films, Dao Duy Phuc's The Life and 1963's Mrs To Hau by Pham Ky Nam.

The festival will close with Road To Dawn, an account of Dr Sun Yat Sen's revolutionary efforts when he was in Penang, Malaysia. Taiwanese actor Winston Chao is expected to attend the closing ceremony on Monday night.

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