What can you do when your creativity is limited with a theme? Prove the judges wrong by stretching it as far as you can go! Looking through student entries, I have come to these 3 conclusions:
1) as busy as students can be, they actually took the time off to make films! It’s a start to a beautiful journey as a potential filmmaker.
2) hardly do they make films laden with hit points on what would score during judging (other than keeping to the theme, or an interpretation of it)
3) they stretch the theme the furthest as it can go!
With the usual submissions from ITE colleges, polytechnics and universities, I was impressed with the one and only submission from the primary school level – Greenwood Primary School by Azizah Nor Muhamed.
Didn’t we all start filmmaking with this simplistic matching and patching of scenes together to tell a story? Stories from student entries do vastly differ from entries submitted for the open category. The difference lies not mainly because of the age difference, but also on their perspective as well. They had grown up in the booming trade of over enthusiastic kiasu parenting, such as reflected in the video submitted by Rudy Tan titled “Childhood”.
Despite the students’ young age, they do get hit with sense of nostalgia and do I sense as well a tinge of envy too? In the video “I remember the good old games in Singapore” submitted by Chai Chuan Jie, it was made even more apparent of the entire disappearance of such games played among the youth anymore. Now, it can only be passed down as narratives, stories and recollections by the older generations. It can now only be reimagined and replayed.
Or how about a submission from Global Indian International School, Queenstown Campus? It is interesting to see how students from private schools view how it is like growing up and living in Singapore, and what Singapore means for them. In making the video and submitting for Cine65 is already saying something.
To be honest, it was difficult of me at first to lay aside my trained brain that has been accustomed to watch and critic stylised filmmaking - but once I had cast that away, I found that student entries to be intriguing and also are very telling of the kind of perspective they have of Singapore now. These young students may not still be wholly aware of the power of film, but just with these few entries I am able to tell how differently they think of Singapore. I hope that this project had ignited something in them to continue filmmaking - it would be interesting to see more diverse voices out in the local film industry!
1) as busy as students can be, they actually took the time off to make films! It’s a start to a beautiful journey as a potential filmmaker.
2) hardly do they make films laden with hit points on what would score during judging (other than keeping to the theme, or an interpretation of it)
3) they stretch the theme the furthest as it can go!
With the usual submissions from ITE colleges, polytechnics and universities, I was impressed with the one and only submission from the primary school level – Greenwood Primary School by Azizah Nor Muhamed.
Didn’t we all start filmmaking with this simplistic matching and patching of scenes together to tell a story? Stories from student entries do vastly differ from entries submitted for the open category. The difference lies not mainly because of the age difference, but also on their perspective as well. They had grown up in the booming trade of over enthusiastic kiasu parenting, such as reflected in the video submitted by Rudy Tan titled “Childhood”.
Despite the students’ young age, they do get hit with sense of nostalgia and do I sense as well a tinge of envy too? In the video “I remember the good old games in Singapore” submitted by Chai Chuan Jie, it was made even more apparent of the entire disappearance of such games played among the youth anymore. Now, it can only be passed down as narratives, stories and recollections by the older generations. It can now only be reimagined and replayed.
Or how about a submission from Global Indian International School, Queenstown Campus? It is interesting to see how students from private schools view how it is like growing up and living in Singapore, and what Singapore means for them. In making the video and submitting for Cine65 is already saying something.
To be honest, it was difficult of me at first to lay aside my trained brain that has been accustomed to watch and critic stylised filmmaking - but once I had cast that away, I found that student entries to be intriguing and also are very telling of the kind of perspective they have of Singapore now. These young students may not still be wholly aware of the power of film, but just with these few entries I am able to tell how differently they think of Singapore. I hope that this project had ignited something in them to continue filmmaking - it would be interesting to see more diverse voices out in the local film industry!