The Girl Left Behind (2020)

Siew Lup

Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.

In the Mood for Love

Two neighbors form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.

My Magic

A single dad looks to give up drinking and his bartender job in order to impress his son and find work as a magician.

The Letter

After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.

Road to Singapore

Two playboys try to forget previous romances in Singapore – until they meet a beautiful dancer.

Singapore Woman

A fallen woman seeks redemption at a Singapore rubber plantation. Melodrama.

Crazy Rich Asians

An American-born Chinese economics professor accompanies her boyfriend to Singapore for his best friend's wedding, only to get thrust into the lives of Asia's rich and famous.

Taxi! Taxi!

"Taxi! Taxi!" is a social comedy set in the metropolitan city-state of Singapore, told through the encounters of two characters who are in what is widely perceived as the most sociable profession on the island taxi drivers. Inspired by famed blogger Dr Cai Mingjie's real life accounts as a taxi driver in his bestseller "Diary Of A Taxi Driver: True Stories From Singapore's Most Educated Cabdriver", the movie follows the trials and tribulations of a retrenched microbiology scientist, Professor Chua, as he turns to taxi driving after several failed job attempts. Along the way, he befriends (although they didn't quite start off as friends from the get-go) a veteran taxi driver, Ah Tau. The two men, who appear to be polar opposites of each other in every aspect from educational levels, personalities, attitudes toward life and even the languages that they speak, eventually find themselves interdependent and influencing each other in ways that they probably had never imagined

Singapore Dreaming

Disappointed by his failed dreams, Loh Poh Huat visits his frustrations on his family. So when he wins the lottery, everyone believes the money will deliver them from their struggles. However, Loh dies abruptly and his elaborate and surreal Taoist funeral pitches the family into a battle where the stakes are the very meaning of life itself. Singapore Dreaming is a poignant yet darkly humorous story which follows the lives of six individuals as they navigate the rapidly changing conditions experienced in today’s modern South-East Asian cities.

Lasting Moments

Aki and Pia are a devoted couple working hard to build a future together. Pia, driven by love and a desire to lift her family from poverty, is offered a prestigious job in Singapore by her boss Carlo—who harbors feelings for her. As Pia’s career flourishes, Aki’s life unravels, leading to addiction and their painful breakup. Five years later, Pia is successful but unfulfilled in a relationship with the controlling Carlo. She returns to the Philippines, rejects his proposal, and seeks out Aki—only to find a man who no longer seems to know her. Faced with regret, Pia must confront the cost of her choices and the love she may have lost forever.

881

Two Singaporean girls join together to form the Papaya Sisters, a getai group that sings at performances during the seventh lunar month. Big Papaya is estranged from her mother, who disapproves of her performances, whilst Little Papaya is an orphan who suffers from terminal cancer. The two are assisted by Auntie Ling and her son, Guan Yin. The two soon rise to the top of the Singaporean getai scene singing traditional Hokkien songs, but their fame brings along with it the enmity of the Durian Sisters, a rival group of techno-singing Eurasian girls.

World for Ransom

In Singapore, a private detective and the British authorities are on the trail of a crime syndicate that kidnaps a nuclear physicist with the aim of selling him to the highest bidder.

Be with Me

Three tales of love wrap around the true story of a blind and deaf woman named Theresa Chan. In the first an elderly shopkeeper is devoted to his sick wife. In the second, two teenage girls become soul mates and lovers. In the third a chubby security guard tries to find the courage to woo a beautiful woman who works in his building.

Chennai 2 Singapore

An aspiring filmmaker, who is also down on luck, goes to Singapore to meet a producer, but what follows is misadventure after misadventure, with a dash of romance thrown in.

15

Five troubled teens, abandoned by society and family, form a bond in a world of violence, drugs, and self-destruction, facing harsh realities of modern Singapore.

King Rat

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

Tourism

When Nina wins free airline tickets, she leaves her dingy apartment and part-time factory job in Yamato City, Japan for Singapore with her friend Su.

Ramen Shop

Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.

I Not Stupid 3

Wang Zi Hao, a Chinese Primary 6 student from Shanghai, China residing in Singapore, faces academic pressure when his new classmate Jayden Lee Jun Wei frames him for cheating to maintain his top-ranking status. Meanwhile, Zi Hao's Mother, Wen Ting, is falsely accused of illegal work by Jayden's competitive mother, Sophia. Amidst the turmoil, the two mothers realise the toll on their sons and unite to prioritise their well-being over grades, fostering reconciliation.

Ah Girls Go Army

WHAT IF, in the unforeseen future, when there are not enough boys in Singapore? If Girls have to serve National Service also, what will happen? The story will focus on the first batch of female recruits, a bunch of Gen Z teens and youngsters with different backgrounds and education. As they trained under the fierce leadership of Sergeant Chow and Lieutenant Roxanne, they find themselves being pushed to the limit of their potential. Together, they overcome hardship and initial resistance to serve NS and discover newfound abilities, using it to solve and mend relationships in their personal life as well.

Singapore

After the war, Matt Gordon returns to Singapore to retrieve a fortune in smuggled pearls. Arrived, he reminisces in flashback about his prewar fiancée, alluring Linda, and her disappearance during the Japanese attack. But now Linda resurfaces...with amnesia and married to rich planter Van Leyden. Meanwhile, sinister fence Mauribus schemes to get Matt's pearls.

China Wife

Ah-gau (Keung Chung-ping) leaves his wife Sou Jing, and son in Macau for Nanyang to join his cousin (Patrick Tse Yin) in search of employment. A series of events propel Ah-gau into high society and he falls in love with a tycoon’s daughter, Ming-zyu, (Patsy Kar Ling). Abandoned by Ah-gau, Sou Jing suffers in utter poverty and journeys to Singapore in search of her husband.

Mindemic

A retired film director locked up in a suburban Rome apartment attempts to write a new movie, his eternal opera zero.

Wet Season

Wet Season revolves around the life of Ling, a schoolteacher who deals with infertility while having to take care of her infirm father-in-law at home. One of Ling's students, Kok Wei Lun, develops a crush on her during remedial Chinese classes. The two become closer as Wei Lun embraces Ling's extra tutoring.

Saint Jack

Jack Flowers is an American hustler trying to make his fortune in 1970s Singapore in small time pimping. His dreams of building a fortune by running a brothel himself and returning to the States is materialized when he is offered the opportunity by the CIA to run a brothel for the R&R activities of U.S. soldiers on leave in Singapore.

Paradise Road

A group of English, American, Dutch and Australian women creates a vocal orchestra while being imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp on Sumatra during World War II.

Granny

An elderly widow finds an unexpected visitor, a young asylum-seeking girl, in her home during dinner. Inspired by a 2012 event, whereby 40 Burmese Rohingya asylum seekers arrived in the port of Singapore.

In the Room

This sensitive and sensual film draws together several narratives spanning several decades, all of them transpiring in the same room of the same Singaporean hotel — and all of them involving sex.

Doina

Doina, a shepherd’s wife in ancient Romania, turns her daily routine into ritual. When nature foretells his death, her journey through grief blends realism, myth, and magic, where despair meets imagination.

Canopy

Wartime, 1942. Singapore. An Australian fighter pilot shot down in combat awakens suspended in the treetops. As night devours day, he must navigate through dangerous jungle in search of sanctuary.

Don’t Cry, Butterfly

Tam, a diligent wedding venue staffer, discovers her husband’s affair on live TV. Rather than confronting him, she enlists a powerful spell master to win back his love. Tam’s daughter, Ha, pours her frustration into vivid fantasies of a brighter future abroad. Meanwhile, a mysterious House Spirit, visible only to the women, lurks beneath their cracked, leaky ceiling.

The Leap Years

Li-Ann, a dreamer, is a strong believer of the soul mate theory and rejects all men, especially her best friend KS, until she falls in love with Jeremy, at first sight. They tour Chinatown, Singapore, together on February 29, 1980. Unfortunately, she is heartbroken when he tells her he is engaged. He decides to make up to her by meeting her at the same time, same place, every leap year. Their love spans 20 years, as they realize the pain of love until they take the leap of faith...and the leap of love...

Across to Singapore

While Joel and his older ship's captain brother Mark are at sea, the latter is abandoned in Singapore by devious ship's mate Finch who, upon their return, convinces the townspeople that Joel abandoned his brother. Joel, determined to not only find Mark but to see justice done, returns the ship to Singapore.

Sal of Singapore

SAL OF SINGAPORE was nominated for an Oscar for achievement in Writing during the second year of the Academy Awards. The film, being a part-talkie, nearly disappared from view. However, a preservation print does exist at UCLA, although it is unavailable for public viewing, awaiting restoration.

Free Hugs

A jaded Office Lady’s perspective on life is thwarted when she runs into her ex, an Ah Beng giving out free hugs to strangers.

The Virgin Soldiers

The core of the plot is the romantic triangle formed by the protagonist, a conscripted soldier named Private Brigg, a worldly professional soldier named Sergeant Driscoll, and Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major. The location is a British army base in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency.

Long Long Time Ago 2

Zhao Di takes over her family farm with the help of Ah Long after the 1969 floods. After the government started reclaiming land for development in 1977, licensed owners like Zhao Di are compensated but her brother accuses her of having an affair with Ah Long to get the money for himself. Meanwhile, Osman does not approve of his son playing in a rock band as he fears the negative influence, causing his son to run away from home. As for Ah Hee and Rani, they decide to get married but their traditional parents are against it.

Young & Fabulous

The coming-of-age story of a group of teenage friends—Royston, Violet, and Hao Ren—who strive against all challenges and obstacles to pursue their dreams.

Ilo Ilo

During the late 1990s, a busy working-class Singaporean couple hires a Filipino woman as a maid and nanny to their young son.

Ah Boys To Men 2

After realising his foolishness in malingering, Ken returns to Tekong to continue his Basic Military Training, and reforms himself as a model recruit. However, this draws dislike and mockery from his section mates, led by the street-smart Lobang.

Repossession

50-year-old Jim (Gerald Chew, "Apprentice", Cannes Film Festival 2016 Un Certain Regard) loses his high-flying job in status-conscious Singapore, but his ego and pride compel him to hide this from his wife (Amy J Cheng, "Crazy Rich Asians") and daughter. His only confidante is his best friend (Sivakumar Palakrishnan, "A Yellow Bird", Cannes Film Festival 2016 Critics' Week). Desperately clinging onto the material symbols of his past success, he unlocks a hibernating malevolent force, with sinister roots in long-buried secrets. As his dream life crumbles around him, worlds collide, the lines between then and now become increasingly blurred, and Jim descends into a waking nightmare. REPOSSESSION is a bold, genre-bending film, with an ever-evolving, haunting soundscape from Golden Horse Award-winning composer Teo Wei Yong ("A Land Imagined").

Homerun

A remake of the award-winning Iranian film Children of Heaven, Homerun is a drama about two poor siblings and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes.

The Food on the Table

Now the subjects of a despotic chief, far from having any favor to expect from him, as both themselves and all they have are his property, or at least are considered by him as such, are obliged to receive as a favor what he relinquishes to them of their own property. He does them justice when he strips them. He treats them with mercy when he suffers them to live. In a beautiful house, during a beautiful day, next to a library with no books, a table is set for the last supper of its inhabitants.

Life

Justin is caught up in the mundane routine of everyday life. Can anything break him out of the cycle, or like most of us is he doomed to repeat it forever?