In recent years, there has been an increasing number of young local filmmakers who have been recognised on international stages. In this session, we will chat with past NYFA winners and Singapore filmmakers who have gone international with their works. They will share their experiences showcasing their stories to a foreign audience.
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.
Interested to watch the award-winning films by our young filmmakers?
Automatonomy by Jerrold Chong and Mark Wee
In a post-apocalyptic future divided by social unrest between humans and robots, Xin rescues Diane and takes her back to his bunker. After finally finding another kid to befriend and enjoy his toys with, Xin’s underlying prejudices reveals itself. Watch it here!
After discovering that they will be replaced by a cashless payment system, the 4 cashiers of Jin Jin supermarket lock themselves inside the store to protest technology replacing their jobs. We follow them throughout the night as they resist the management’s threats and grapple with their conscience and desperation to safeguard their livelihood. Watch it here!
After his son inadvertently killed a Korean girl in a hit and run accident, Hoh Yim travels to South Korea to reconcile with the victim’s parents but learns far more about himself than he ever expected to.
Panelists:
Jerrold Chong, director, ‘Piece of Meat’
Director/animator Jerrold Chong graduated with a BFA in Animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). An avid lover of cinema, he is fascinated by the power of animated cinema as abstract visual metaphor and is driven by a desire to tell sincere stories that examines the depths of everyday life and the complexities of the human experience.
His films have screened at numerous international film festivals, including Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival in Bristol, Animatricks Animation Festival in Helsinski, Short Shorts Film Festival in Tokyo and Bucheon International Animation Festival in Korea. His films What Has To Be and Automatonomy won the Best Animated Film Award (Open Category) at National Youth Film Awards in 2018 and 2019. He also co-founded the independent animation studio Finding Pictures.
Jonathan Choo, director, ‘Han’
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.
Tan Wei Ting, director, ‘CA$H’
Tan Wei Ting was first trained in storytelling in theatre. It was in film school that she discovered the wonders of filmmaking, and has since never looked back.
Her debut short film “CA$H” (Director, Writer, Editor) has been selected for International Competition at the 41st Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France and has since travelled to different parts of the world, including Ireland, Italy, California, Toronto, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Philippines, etc.
Works she has done in other capacities include “One Hour to Daylight” (Head-writer), where she adapted four local literary texts into her first screenwriting feature under the Singapore Writer’s Film Festival in 2016; “Still Is Time” (Editor), which was selected for competition at the 37th Uppsala International Short Film Festival in Sweden; “My Father After Dinner” (Editor), which won Best Singapore Short Film at the 26th Singapore International Film Festival; “VOTE” (Writer) which won her Best Screenplay at the 3rd cINE65 short film competition; “Passenger” (Writer & Editor) and “The Longest-Distance Relationship” (Producer), which won Best Jury Award and Best Documentary respectively at the 6th Singapore Short Films Award.
Wei Ting cares about telling honest stories.
Shoki Lin, director, ‘Adam’
Shoki is a director, writer and cinematographer based in Singapore.
He studied Digital Filmmaking at Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media.
His thesis short film “ADAM” was part of the Cinéfondation Selection at the 72nd Festival de Cannes. His previous works include “Chasing Paper” which was in competition at the 2018 Busan International Film Festival and “Changi” which won best picture at the 2017 National Youth Film Awards.
