General Inquiries is a new monthly column, published hopefully every last day of the month, by SINdie editor Alfonse Chiu that asks questions about the state of contemporary Southeast Asian cinema, with or without satisfying, to-the-point, crowd-pleasing, politically correct, morally acceptable, logically sound, ethically compromised, academically rigorous answers.
In June 2022, they ask “What is happening in Singapore cinema today???” and the following questions:
Who
- Who picks the Singaporean entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, and how?
- Who actually watched Precious Is the Night (Chinese title: 今宵多珍重) in Singapore in 2021, and why was it the Singaporean entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards?
- Who actually watched Buffalo Boys in Singapore in 2018, and why was it the Singaporean entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards?
- Who, in Singapore’s filmmaking landscape and particularly amongst directors and producers, stays in public housing or knows the reality of staying in a government flat as opposed to just shooting in one?
- Who is a Singapore film critic whose works are read for pleasure and for their literary qualities, instead of for information and because, “Hey, man, they are all we’ve got”?
- Who are Singapore’s film critics?
- Who are Singapore’s film reviewers?
- Who are Singapore’s film writers?
- Who gets paid enough to eke out a living for each month through writing about film in Singapore?
- … and who stays in Singapore, and possibly, in public housing?
- Who is a Singapore filmmaker whose works make you say, “Damn, I gotta catch it because it’s gonna be good,” instead of “Damn, I gotta catch it because it’s a Singapore film and I am Singaporean”?
- Who is a Singapore film scholar in Singapore who has tenure?
- Who is a Singapore film scholar in Singapore whose opinions are frequently sought by any form of mainstream press media whenever it comes to issues faced by Singapore film and film culture locally?
- Just kidding, who is a Singapore film scholar in Singapore whose opinions are sought by any form of mainstream press media any time at all?
- Who is Jan Uhde?
- Who is a Singapore filmmaker, whose name is neither Jack Neo nor Royston Tan nor Ong Keng Sen (surprise, surprise!), whose film(s) grossed at least a million at the local box office, even after adjusting for inflation?
What
- What is the average number of films produced in Singapore annually, not-counting co-productions where Singapore’s involvement is definitely not visibly Singaporean in the final work?
- What is the status of that National Film Centre that got all the old(er) people of Singapore cinema worked up a while back that is supposed to be mooted by the State?
- What is the state of film funding in Singapore?
- What is the state of film funding by state funders in Singapore?
- What is the likelihood of films never being produced in Singapore again, should state funders decide their investments aren’t quite worth it?
- What is the number of standard 4-room public housing flats in a relatively far-from-city location that you have to sell to afford enough money to make a film that is considered no-budget everywhere else?
- What is the make-up of the censorship department in the state media agency?
- … and what is the worst thing they have seen?
- What would their reactions should pornographies, amongst other types of unspecified obscene materials, be submitted for their perusal and assessment?
- What is the state of their knowledge on the sublime arts of Pasolini?
- What is the state of their knowledge on cinema?
- What is the state of their understanding of visual culture which isn’t pedestrian?
Where
- Where are our Malay filmmakers?
- Where are our Malay woman filmmakers?
- Where are our Malay woman filmmakers who are directors and other above-the-line members of the creative team?
- Where are our Indian filmmakers?
- Where are our Indian woman filmmakers?
- Where are our Indian woman filmmakers who are directors and other above-the-line members of the creative team?
- Where are our working class filmmakers?
- et cetera.
When
- When will we claim P. Ramlee as a national treasure?
- When will we have film economists (if such vocations exist) that can advice us on industry development in both the public and private sectors?
- When will the Singapore International Film Festival have a FIPRESCI Prize?
- When will a Singapore film chose to have a World Premiere at SGIFF as opposed to Cannes, should such an option be available?
- When will a Singapore film specialist have tenure in a Singapore academic institution, whose academic output actually includes critical analysis of arthouse, independent, and commercial Singapore titles to tell us about our present Singapore anxieties?
Why
… this is dangerous territory, skip.
Bonus Round: How
- How many times, and in how many different permutations, would the tagline “The first of its kind” be applied to a Singaporean film production the genre of which has already been in a state of purgatory for the past decade?
- How long would it take for the sunken cost of producing an independent feature in Singapore to be recovered?