The Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) returns this year for its 31st edition with more than 70 titles from across 49 countries, with a whopping amount of more than 20 titles from Singapore alone. Festival highlights include recent Venice titles such as Chloe Zhao's Golden Lion winning Nomadland, Filipino auteur Lav Diaz's Orizzonti Best Director winner Genus Pan, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Silver Lion winning Wife of a Spy.
Singapore filmmaker Tan Bee Thiam's Tiong Bahru Social Club, which recently premiered at Busan International Film Festival and will be showing at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, will open the festival. Key competitive segments, such as the Asian Feature Competition and the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition, leading to the Silver Screen Awards will remain, alongside key incubator programmes such as the Southeast Asian Film Lab (SEA Film Lab) and the Youth Jury & Critics Programme (YJCP), both under the auspice of the SGIFF Film Academy (SFA), the festival's holistic training initiative to support Southeast Asian film talents and nurture film appreciation among the audience.
Participants of the 2020 SEA Film Lab include Malaysian filmmaker Ananth Subramaniam, Philippine producer Bianca Balbuena making her feature film debut and filmmaker Carl Adrian Chavez, Burmese filmmaker Zaw Bo Bo Hein, Cambodian filmmaker Mony Kann Darung, Vietnamese filmmaker Nông Nháºt Quang, Thai filmmakers Jirassaya Wongsutin and Primrin Puarat, and Singaporean filmmakers Charlotte Hong Bee Her and Russell Adam Morton.
Taking a hybrid approach to exhibition, this year's SGIFF features a mix of both in-cinema viewing options and digital screenings, to be accompanied by peripheral programming adjusted to suit the current pandemic conditions. The festival will run from 26 November to 6 December and remains as core component of the Singapore Media Festival, an expansive trade initiative featuring various media events hosted by the Infocomm Media Development Authority.