NOTES FROM SERANGOON ROAD

I will cut under duress, but I will not neaten the seams for you

http://singabloodypore.rsfblog.org/

At Yakun, 24 Aug 5pm, picture taken by Lillian Wang

Clement, Royston Tan, Eva Tang, Boo Junfeng, Wee Li lin (jet laggged, but smiley), Victric Thng, Yeo Lee Nah, Han Yew Kwang, Liao Jiekai, Ho Tzu Nyen.

Singapore GaGa and Moving House are screening in Tokyo next weekend in a festival of Singapore films organised by Yumi Matsushita and her Japanese friends, all of whom have spent some time in Singapore and want to introduce Singapore to the Japanese. Thank you Yumi and friends, for all the work organising and translating. I wish I could come! Lovely and telling poster too.

Meanwhile as we speak, Invisible City is on tour in Taiwan, its part of a tour of Taiwan International Documentary Festival award winners organised by the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Here is the schedule. I am this close to chucking it all and going on tour with the films.
Taitung
2009 / 07 / 31

Taipei
2009 / 08 / 21

Kaohsiung
2009 / 09 / 25

Hsinchu
2009 / 09 / 26

Yunlin
2009 / 10 / 05

Chiayi
2009 / 10 / 05

Kaohsiung
2009 / 10 / 09

Tainan
2009 / 10 / 10

Taichung
2009 / 10 / 11

Taipei
2009 / 10 / 14

On the 5 Sep, am screening Singapore GaGa to the NYU Tisch-Asia students, screening follows with a Q&A, will be interesting

Am looking forward to the documentary, Lost Images, featuring Ivan Polunin’s footage of Singapore which he took of 50’s, 60’s Singapore. It is commissioned by okto channel as part of National Day celebrations. Lost City would have been a more appropriate title, the Singapore that he filmed does not exist any more, which is all the more reason to see it. Lost Images features his footage with many of us commenting on it. It is directed by Peter Lamb. For me Polunin represents the last of the swashbuckling colonial explorers and I had the pleasure of interviewing him for Invisible City. In the still above taken from his footage, he is packing for a trip off Tuas. In his boat, he packs a few durians!

Details: okto channel, Mon 10 Aug, 9.30 pm

In tandem with this documentary NUS Museum features an exhibition of his photos that opens from 8 Aug-22 Nov. A must see as much for the Singapore it reveals as for the way of seeing. He is now in his 80s, frail, I know he will be happy for both these tributes.

Catch a short interview him here (part of trailer for Invisible City)

s/pores is an online journal exploring different aspects of singapore society

s/pores is launching its new look, its new URL and a new issue which I guest edited this sun evening at food 03

the three great essays which I am very happy to help birth in issue #4 are:

yu-mei balasingamchow once bonded (on being a bonded scholarship holder)

ho weng hin reminisces on a hdb point block (on the most resilient design trope in singapore’s public housing pantheon)

lee huay leng beyond language learning (considers language learning guided by different imperatives)

www.s-pores.com

i am not sure how an online journal is “launched”, (someone presses a button?) I do know the s/pores gang will be there all at hand for food drinks and conversation. The writers of this issue will be there too. meanwhile s/pores is looking for writers so do come to meet the s/poreans if you are keen to write for them

ps food 03 serves great vitagen vodkas amongst other drinks

time: 6.30pm

address food 03: 109 rowell road, between little india and jalan besar

cash bar basis

rsvp events@s-pores.com › to help us plan the evening

We recently had a filmmakers’ town hall meeting at the Substation. The event that sparked this off was the sudden cancellation of the filmmakers travelling grant given out by Singapore Film Commission. SFC has replaced it with a grant called “Inspire” which applies only if you have a pre-arranged meeting with a sales agent (ie there must be a potentially commercial outcome from the trip). Inspire came into operation 2 months ago, and its application isn’t clear. About 30 of us met to
I don’t have more details yet because we are still in the process of deciding what our “thing” is, who can join, how we vote and make decisions. All the basic stuff that makes a group a group, a country a country. Or we may not last beyond this issue. My view is we need representation within SFC and MDA so there are good sustainable reasons to stick together and then some.
The next next meeting is on Wed, 23 July, 7pm, Substation. Send an email to filmcommunitysg@gmail.com to introduce yourself and be added to the group. More on Inspire here httpa;//www.smf.sg, under “Business Centre / Funding”.

Taken by Substation

A Singapore high school teacher told me that he screens Moving House to his students. Normally it is shown as part of social studies so I was surprised when he mentioned that he showed Moving House as part of his philosophy class. I didn’t even know they taught philosophy in high school. I asked him what topic of philosophy would warrant Moving House being shown, he said they are dealing with the question “What makes a Good Life?”. WTF! Posing this to 16 year olds? I suppose its never too early to ask this question though I have only just begun to grapple with it myself (and its collorary “How to Live?”), it is not easy to answer it . . even with some help

The Singapore GaGa site has been hijacked by a porno site because I was too busy and forgot to renew my domain name (ie singaporegaga dot com) so someone else bought it (Russian) and put the most heinous picture on the homepage. They put the picture there to taunt me I am sure.

The fact that you have to now be confronted with a picture of a woman being raped on the splash page, is at the end of the day, my fault.

I could write to the new owners, ask them to give it back to me for a fee (they will squeeze me hard I know, so one has to be nonchalant in these negotiations) or just wait for the address to expire after one year, hope they don’t renew it, and then try to buy it back

Couple of things

1)  Please accept my apologies if you have to accidentally see the site, I was traumatised

2)  Don’t ever let this happen to you, this could have been prevented if I took my domain name re-sellers email warnings more seriously, but my emails overflowed and it was forgotten

3)  This article gives you some guidance as to what to do when something like this happens, not much, since it lapsed and was legitimately bought
4)   I am now going through my sites to redirect all singaporegaga.com stuff to http://www.tanpinpin.com/sgg

If you happen to link Singapore GaGa somewhere, pls change the links to!

Moving House screened at this year’s Oberhausen Short Film Festival in a programme curated by David Teh and Gridthiya Gaweewong called Unreal Asia. I couldn’t make it and asked if the organisers could take a picture of the audience for me (I am sentimental like that). They did with what looks like a night vision camera, you can see the audience watching the movie, their posture relaxed (sleeping?). So voyeuristic.

Its been one of the most exciting past 6 weeks which rejigged my insides
Volunteered with hospitality at the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) – was girl friday to Amos Gitai, fetched him coffee etc etc
Watched and liked his films One Day You Will Understand, Free Zone, Promised Land
Conducted James Lee’s Q&A for Call if You Need Me at SIFF

Went to Police HQ to get a licence for Amir Muhammed’s film’s Q&A (a first in Singapore, a licence for a film’s Q&A?)
Almost ran for politics (Arts NMP)

Canvassed for people to attend AWARE’S EOGM (“I am not very political” “sorry I got something on”)

Voted for an Arts NMP (Congrats Audrey, Loretta)

Voted at the Aware’s EOGM
Voted at my block’s Lift Upgrading Programme (Free walnut cake!)

Was a matchmaker and chaperoned a friend on a blind date (Food was good)

Attended my first EOGM. It was better than a rock concert, you all should have come

Wrote a script outline and now clearing the deck to write it.
Wrote a grant proposal for a documentary and submitted it in the middle of all that

Shot for a documentary that yet has no name

Edited three essays that came in for spores!

Met the Swedes

Attended an accordion concert

Went bowling

One plug, please go watch Sell Out by Yeo Joon Han, its probably the last week in the cinemas. Its like a  good Raffles Hall skit +++ side splittingly silly funny, has a protagonist called Rafflesia Pong