Each year, under the Singapore Digital (SG:D) Scholarship, selected students are sent out to study and read subjects across the media and film education. With IMDA and some returning scholars, this session intends to shed light on the application process and perhaps share some tips and tricks towards being selected.
This year, NYFA Conference is going digital! The sessions will be live streamed on 17th April 2020. Through the online conference platform, you’ll be able to interact with the panelists and ask questions during the sessions.
Session 3 – Media Scholarships Possibilities and probabilities – Q&A
Panelists:
Dorcas Tan, Director (Human Capital Development), IMDA
Dorcas has worked in various government agencies and public policy roles. Prior to her current appointment, she was the Director (Market Development and Surveillance Department) in Energy Market Authority (EMA) who led in the implementation of the Open Electricity Market, full liberalisation of the retail electricity market in Singapore. She was also previously Director (Strategic Planning and International) in GovTech and served in the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), Charities Unit, and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS). Dorcas was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) in 2015.
Dorcas graduated with Masters of Science in Public Management and Governance with Distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Bachelor of Social Sciences in Economics (Hons) with the National University of Singapore.
Ivan Tan, Writer-Director (SG:D Media Scholar)
Ivan Tan is a writer-director from Singapore. His first short film, Tadpoles, was awarded the jury prize at the 66th Locarno International Film Festival – the first for a Singaporean director. Shortly after, he was one of eight directors accepted into the National Film & Television School in the UK under a national scholarship. Ivan spent the first seven years of his life living with his grandparents. At eight, he found out that they were not his real grandparents. This rupture in his childhood allowed him to understand how powerful stories can be in shaping one’s reality. Ivan’s early films constantly asked what family meant. Today, Ivan’s work examines contemporary Singaporean society through bizarre and absurd situations.
Jonathan Choo, Director (SG:D Media Scholar)
Jonathan is perennially curious in the spectrum of humanity, trying to elucidate the poetry between the lines in stories set within family dynamics. At his time at school, his shorts, Stroll, Hero and his graduation film Han garnered him nominations for Best director at the National Youth Film Awards in 2015 and 2016, taking home the award in the latter year. Han went on to travel notable film festivals worldwide in Poland, Cleveland, Tokyo, Yogyakarta and Tehran. In 2017, his experimental take on the short film format, Rehearsal played in the Singapore International Film Festival Singapore Panorama section. Aside from shorts, Jonathan had also directed music videos for Charlie Lim for his singles Light Breaks in and Welcome home. In 2019, Jonathan completed his MA in Directing Fiction at the National Film and Television School in the UK on an IMDA MES scholarship.
Low Ser En, Independent Producer (SG:D Media Scholar)
Ser En Low is a Singaporean BAFTA-winning producer/writer, whose live action and animated short films have been screened and won awards at over 100 international film festivals. Ser En holds a BFA in Filmmaking from Nanyang Technological University with First Class Honours, and an MA in Producing from the National Film and Television School, with a scholarship from IMDA and mm2 Entertainment. In 2018, Ser En was also conferred Outstanding Young Alumni by Nanyang Technological University, and featured in Her World, The Straits Times and Women’s Weekly as a rising female filmmaker.
From 2017-2018, she was an associate producer for Asian media conglomerate mm2 Entertainment; her projects include Zombiepura (2018), Circle Line (in post-production) and a TV adaptation of Dick Lee’s Fried Rice Paradise. As a freelance producer, she was the script development producer for a TV adaptation of Goh Boon Teck’s successful stage play Titoudao, and animation producer for Imagi-nation, an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary. At the moment, Ser En is writing and producing her own feature film project Upstarts, and co-founded eunak.com, a career advice website for millennials and Gen Z.
