Archive for the ‘Money No Enough’ Category
Two Local Films To Be Featured At Pusan International Film Festival
SINGAPORE : Two Singapore films, “My Magic” and “12 Lotus”, will be featured at the 13th Pusan International Film Festival in Korea next month.
Eric Khoo’s “My Magic”, a story about a down-and-out ex-magician and his young son, is also Singapore’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the Oscars (Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences).
“12 Lotus”, a 121-minute film from Raintree Pictures, Studio 10TwentyEight, Scorpio East Pictures and Infinite Frameworks, narrates a tale about Lian Hua, a talented singer who yearns for acceptance from the people she loves.
It is Royston Tan’s second film to screen at the Pusan International Film Festival, following the successful premiere of his first musical “881″ at the Festival last year.
The festival is being held in Pusan from October 2 to 10.
Another Singapore production, “Sing To The Dawn” - an animated feature about the coming-of-age of a young girl in a rural village who fights for her right to education - will have its international premiere at the Focus AniAsia section (Animation programme) of the Pusan International Film Festival.
The movie is based on the award-winning book by Minfong Ho. And the film is co-produced by Raintree Pictures, Media Development Authority (MDA), Infinite Frameworks and Scorpio East Pictures.
“Sandcastle”, a psychological drama directed by Boo Junfeng, is Singapore’s entry among 30 projects selected for the Pusan Promotion Plan.
The Plan is a platform for film-makers and producers to meet potential co-producers to explore financing and co-production opportunities.
Kenneth Tan, director of the Singapore Film Commission and chief operating officer of MDA, said the exposure that Singapore companies get at the Pusan International Film Market is good for the country’s profile and industry development.
He said: “Not only are Singapore films capturing the attention of consumers and distributors worldwide, they are also winning significant international accolades. Our goal is to produce 15-20 internationally-marketable feature films each year.”
A Singapore Pavilion will be set up at the Asian Film Market, the trade component of the Festival, to market Singapore titles.
The titles include “The Funeral Party”, directed by Glen Goei; “Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner”, a trilogy by Asian women directors Eva Tang, Anocha Suwichakornpong and Peng Shan; Brian Gothong Tan’s “Invisible Children” and Jack Neo’s “Money No Enough 2″. - CNA/ms
Channel News Asia
MediaCorp Raintree Pictures Looks Ahead As It Turns 10 On Tues
SINGAPORE : MediaCorp Raintree Pictures turns 10 years old on Tuesday.
Channel NewsAsia’s Lynlee Foo sat down and spoke to Raintree Pictures’ Managing Director Daniel Yun on The Big Picture, a fortnightly news segment on the arts and entertainment scene, and finds out what’s ahead for the company.
Foo: It has been 10 years for MediaCorp Raintree Pictures. What has been the most satisfying and what was the hardest?
Yun: The fact that we are still around and finally getting support from places that matters, like our senior management, certain quarters in the government, the creative quarters in Singapore, and the fact that we had a movie called “I Not Stupid”, a musical work called “881″, our own horror hit like “The Maid”, - these are milestones in their own right.
Then (there had been) one flop after another. (That) was a time when it was very trying because the money was not coming and … viability was really top priority. I mean, should we close down, should we just wrap up a movie?… We are still in a tunnel but there’s still light at the end of the tunnel… We are not really viable yet but we see the light in individual projects which we’ve made money on and it’s clearer now what we need to do.”
Foo: Is this very struggle, the thing that keeps you going, that challenges you?
Yun: What keeps me going is really the ultimate medium for creative people, and for me, it’s the challenge of making something creative and commercially-viable. You have to see it from their (creative people) point of view. For example, before “881,” you can’t (tell) that the film would look like this, that the film will have Hokkien songs. How do you distill that and turn it into a commercial commodity that people will go and see? I think that’s what working with the creative people and adding value is all about.
Foo: You’ve worked with a number of creative types - Singapore filmmakers like Royston Tan, Eric Khoo, Kelvin Tong. Do they tend to make films that they want to make, rather than those that are commercially-viable like you said?
Yun: I think we started out not really understanding the creative types. I think it’s very easy to say “these are the creative types, deal with them.” But I think if you get close to it and you’re working with the creative issues then you understand that an under-developed market is really a market where creative people make personal films. As far as they are concerned, they have done their part. Now that’s when you balance the commercial with the creative, you balance art with business.
Foo: Raintree Pictures have produced many movies from “I Not Stupid”, “Homerun” to the more recent grittier movies like “Protege”, “The Tattooist” and “One Last Dance”. What’s next for Raintree? Will we see a political movie in the future?
Yun: It takes so much to make a film and if we’re going to be really serious about this business, we should push the envelope creatively, in terms of subject matter. “Money No Enough 2″, which is coming up soon, is hitting screens 10 years after the first one came out. But it’s a different film. It’s pushing the envelope in terms of telling the story not just about not having enough money but also the idea of being poor.
As far as political films are concerned, we’ve been nurturing a film called “1965.” It is a film that talks about the people who found Singapore, about our Minister Mentor, and the political people who helped make Singapore what it is today. I think a lot of people will be wondering why we are making a film like that, if we will be tripping over OB (out-of-bound) markers, or tripping over areas that are sensitive.
We’re not people who make films just for the sake of creating a talking point. If we are going somewhere that’s more sensitive, we’ll tread carefully. But the more important thing is to get it right… You want to do the right thing as a serious filmmaker, but that’s not necessarily the easy thing to do. Doing the right thing as a serious filmmaker means you need to start doing things that are not so easy, like making a political film or a film with political content. You need to tread carefully to get the sensitive aspects done. I think the Singapore environment and system is mature enough to want something like that.
Foo: 10 years have passed since you set up Raintree. What is your vision for the next 10 years?
Yun: I think what you would see from now on will be bigger films that are driven by us and for a change, (the bigger) companies will be investing in these films. For example, “China Rose” or “Chinese Rose”, we’re looking at film companies from Asia to invest in this film.
Previously, we’ve invested in “The Eye” and “Infernal Affairs 2″… But this time around, we have a film by Kelvin Tong called the “Monsoon Murders”. It’s a film that you can’t make anywhere else except in this part of the world. It is set against the colonial times of Singapore, and it’s very interesting, very tropical. And it’s really like “Memories of A Murder” meets “LA Confidential,” but Singapore-style or Southeast Asian style. And I think our filmmakers are ready. It’s good enough of a film for filmmakers and film companies to invest in. And that would be a major change. We would not be questioning if our movies would travel, it would definitely travel.
Foo: How close is Raintree Pictures to getting an Oscar nomination or even an award?
Yun: Every project has a potential of a break-out hit. If I tell you that it is another 5 years down the road, I think that’s not being responsible. But I would say is that from now on, every project (we’re undertaking), we will be working towards that.
Raintree Pictures’ latest film “Money No Enough 2″ will hit the big screen in Singapore on July 31. - CNA /ls
Channel News Asia
Local Filmmakers Include More Chinese Dialects In Recent Works
SINGAPORE: Chinese Singaporeans may be speaking more Mandarin at home these days, but this has not discouraged Singapore filmmakers from capturing a very local sound - Chinese dialects - in some of their recent productions.
Art is often said to mirror life. But made-in-Singapore movies are not quite mirroring the changing trends in language use here.
Since the launch of the successful annual Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979, dialects had all but disappeared from the mass media.
According to the last Population Census, 45 per cent of Chinese Singaporeans speak Mandarin at home in 2000, up from 30.1 per cent in 1990, while a matching decline was seen for those who speak dialects at home.
Yet Singapore filmmakers are including more Chinese dialects in their works. For instance, in “Singapore Gaga” - a critically acclaimed documentary by Tan Pin Pin - a tissue-seller sings her blues away in Hokkien.
“During the Singapore International Film Festival, I saw Hou Hsiao Hsien’s ‘Beiqing Chengshi’ or ‘City of Sadness’, and that was the first time in my whole life that I heard Hokkien on the big screen.
“I tell you, if the chair didn’t have a back, I would have fallen over. I just went, ‘Oh my god, we can also make films about ourselves!’,” said Tan.
For one filmmaker, who is especially popular with the heartlanders, dialects work for their expressiveness.
Jack Neo, director of movies such as “I Not Stupid” and “Money No Enough”, said: “There are certain expressions in dialect that Mandarin words just can’t replace. Like ‘pek chek’, there is no way you can use a Mandarin equivalent for that. This is actually a weapon - a weapon of communication.”
Eric Khoo - the first Singapore filmmaker to compete for the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with “My Magic”, a movie filmed in Tamil and a bit of Chinese dialect - said his next film, a biopic of famous cabaret dancer Rose Chan, will be made almost entirely in Cantonese.
Khoo, who is currently overseas, believes it is time to give dialects a freer rein, so long as it is right for the subject matter.
He said: “I think dialect is an important part of Singapore. If you want to be creative with your work you can slip into dialect, slip into Singlish and all that. It gives it that realness that locals would really enjoy. But to say you can only have a percentage of this and a percentage of that, it becomes a nightmare.
“I really don’t think if we had ten dialect films a year in Singapore, then it’s going to make Singaporeans speak more dialect. That just isn’t the case.”
But how much is too much dialect for a Singapore-made movie that is screened here?
When asked, the Media Development Authority’s media content director, Amy Chua, said flexibility is given, depending on the context and usage.
Dialect films with artistic merit are allowed on a case-by-case basis for limited screening at film festivals or film society events.
But even while exercising flexibility, the media authority said efforts to promote Mandarin must be safeguarded or what has been achieved could be undone.
Still, not all in the film industry think the guidelines are too stringent.
“Perth”, a tale about a disillusioned Singapore cabbie contained heavy use of Hokkien and Cantonese dialogue, expletives included. But it got past the censors unscathed.
Juan Foo, producer of “Perth”, said: “I think they just wanted to know what were our motivations and were they justified. We were very thankful and we understood where they were coming from and they understood where we were coming from in terms of telling the story. So it’s really about discussing it at a very early stage to understand what works and what doesn’t.”
At the end of the day, perhaps it is still box-office takings which will give the clearest message on what works and what doesn’t.
- CNA/so
Channel News Asia