Chop Thye Bee (2021)

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.

Enchanting Bournemouth

Bournemouth offers a variety of sports, pastimes, steamer trips, and fine dining for holidaymakers, competing with cheaper foreign holidays and offering a variety of transportation options.

Red Zora

In this sun soaked adventure for the entire family, a group of five orphaned children form their own makeshift family while attempting to operate outside the rules of society. Though they must sometimes steal to survive, their loyalty to one another means that they will always have a brother or sister to count on.

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.

The Letter

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

In the Mood for Love

In 1962 Hong Kong, neighbors Su Li-zhen (Mrs. Chan) and Chow Mo-wan (Mr. Chow) discover their spouses are having an affair. As they spend time together, they develop feelings for each other, but their relationship remains chaste and unspoken, reflecting societal constraints and their own moral compass.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Times are tough at Premiere Properties. Shelley "the machine" Levene and Dave Moss are veteran salesmen, but only Ricky Roma is on a hot streak. The new Glengarry sales leads could turn everything around, but the front office is holding them back until these "losers" prove themselves. Then someone decides to take matters into his own hands, stealing the Glengarry leads and leaving everyone wondering who did it.

Internal Affairs

Keen young Raymold Avila joins the Internal Affairs Department of the Los Angeles police. He and partner Amy Wallace are soon looking closely at the activities of cop Dennis Peck whose financial holdings start to suggest something shady. Indeed Peck is involved in any number of dubious or downright criminal activities. He is also devious, a womaniser, and a clever manipulator, and he starts to turn his attention on Avila.

Long Long Time Ago

The story spans from 1965 to the early 1970s. Heavily pregnant Zhao Di, the unwanted second wife of an older man, was chased out by her husband's family and forced to return to her own family. She gave birth to a pair of twins, Shun Fatt and Su-mei. As Su-mei had two moles on her face, which was said to be bad luck, she decided to give her up due to the pressure of wanting to build a better life for the rest of her family.

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.

Singapore GaGa

Singapore GaGa is a 55-minute paean to the quirkiness of the Singaporean aural landscape. It reveals Singapore's past and present with a delight and humour that makes it a necessary film for all Singaporeans. We hear buskers, street vendors, school cheerleaders sing hymns to themselves and to their communities. From these vocabularies (including Arabic, Latin, Hainanese), a sense of what it might mean to be a modern Singaporean emerges. This is Singapore's first documentary to have a cinema release. With English and Chinese subtitles.

Singapore Woman

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

A Land Imagined

A cop in Singapore investigates the disappearance of a Chinese migrant construction worker who spent sleepless nights playing a mysterious video game.

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.

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.

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.

Carlos Sainz: The Operator

Plot unavailable

Sandcastle

En is an 18-year-old who has lost his father to cancer. As his family is drawn together in a sudden tragedy, he has to decide what he believes in. But in a country where ideologies are forged on constantly shifting sands, he struggles to stay true to what he knows to be right. And in a family that prefers to forget, the sandcastles of all he holds dear seem doomed to be washed away by the tides of time.

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.

90° in the Shade

In a Prague shop, an assistant has been carrying on an affair with the dishonest, married manager. An emotionally repressed auditor with domestic problems of his own uncovers serious stock discrepancies. A test of loyalties and a questioning of values concludes in tragedy.

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.

I Not Stupid Too

A 2006 Singaporean film and the sequel to the 2002 film, I Not Stupid. A satirical comedy, I Not Stupid Too portrays the lives, struggles and adventures of three Singaporean youths - 15-year-old Tom, his 8-year-old brother Jerry and their 15-year-old friend Chengcai - who have a strained relationship with their parents. The film explores the issue of poor parent-child communication.

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.

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.

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.

The World of Dario Argento 3: Museum of Horrors

Documentary about Dario Argento, "Profondo Rosso" shop in Rome, and most important works throughout his career.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Shirkers

In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore's first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges' vanishing footprints.

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.

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.

Five Breakups and a Romance

Even if two people are on the opposite sides of the universe, once the connection is made, they're basically one.

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.

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.

Ride on the Tram Car through Belfast

In 1901 people in Belfast paid their tram drivers in carrots.

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.

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.