Singapore film festival to open with Kazakh thriller ‘Assault’, reveals competition titles

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Assault

Source: Riverlet Films

‘Assault’

Satirical thriller Assault by Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov is set to open the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), marking the first time a film from Central Asia has been selected to lead the event.

The full programme of 101 films from 54 countries – including nine titles for its main competition (see below) – were unveiled today for the festival’s 33^rd edition, which will run from November 24 to December 4 and marks SGIFF’s first fully in-person event since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Yerzhanov is a leading figure in Kazakh cinema with several features to his name including A Dark, Dark Man, The Gentle Indifference Of The World and The Owners, selected for festivals including Cannes, Venice and San Sebastian. He will travel to Singapore alongside long-time producer Olga Khlasheva for the opening gala. Both will also take part in an In Conversation session to meet local audiences.

In addition to Assault, which premiered at Rotterdam in January, Yerzhanov’s other new work Goliath, which debuted at Venice, will be presented in SGIFF’s new Altitude section.

“There are a number of changes to the festival this year, including the introduction of two new sections termed Altitude and Horizon,” said SGIFF programme director Thong Kay Wee.

“In line with last year’s changes to our programme sections, these new additions complete the shift towards a more designated and inclusive programming direction.”

Half of the line-up sits across six curated programmes, including the new sections Altitude, a platform for new works by established filmmakers such as Jafar Panahi’s No Bears and Carla Simon’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner Alcarras; and Horizon, which comprises festival discoveries such as A Long Journey Home by Chinese director Zhang Wenqian and Woo Ming Jin’s Stone Turtle.

The other four strands were created last year to group films based on their content, rather than their country of origin. They are: Foreground, which spotlights cinematic attractions such as Houman Seyedi’s Venice Orizzonti best film winner World War III and The Abandoned by Tseng Ying-Ting who is nominated for best new director at the upcoming Golden Horse Awards; Undercurrent, which charts bold expressions in contemporary cinema such as De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor; and Standpoint, which showcases films that present strong attitudes such as Simon Lereng Wilmont’s documentary A House Made of Splinters and Reid Davenport’s Sundance award-winning documentary I Didn’t See You There.

The last strand, Domain, is curated by guest programmer Roisin Tapponi and presents a selection of film and video works from South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) such as Foragers by Jumana Manna.

Competition, VR and banned titles

The long-standing Silver Screen Awards for both Asian feature films and Southeast Asian shorts will return. The former comprises nine films by directors making their first to third features, including three films developed at SGIFF’s Southeast Asian Film Lab - Arnold Is A Model Student, Leonor Will Never Die and Autobiography.

The Singapore Panorama section will showcase 26 local films including three feature films: the world premieres of Absent Smile by visual artists John Clang and Lavender Chang, and Before Life After Death by Anshul Tiwari; and the Southeast Asian premiere of Geylang directed by Boi Kwong and produced by Jack Neo.

A further local film in the section is Ken Kwek’s #LookAtMe, which has been refused a classification by Singaporean authorities because “it denigrates a religious community and has the potential to cause enmity and social division in Singapore’s multi-racial and multi-religious society”.

SGIFF has retained the film in its official line-up, but no screening will be available according to the festival’s printed programme.

The Singapore Panorama will also present SGIFF’s first VR film programme, with a double bill of The Seven Step Verse by documentary filmmaker Ella Raidel, and In Times Like These… by multidisciplinary creatives Jevon Chandra, Chan Yanyun, Corentin Derbre and Alex Scollay.

The second edition of the outstanding contribution to Southeast Asian cinema award will be handed out to In-Docs from Indonesia, which turns 20 this year. The non-profit institution is devoted to developing the art of documentary storytelling across Southeast Asia. Among its many initiatives, it is best known for the Docs by the Sea pitching forum, which has supported 156 projects and awarded more than $125,000 to Asian documentary filmmakers since 2015.