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Archive - 12th Five Flavours Film Festival

A Land Imagined

Huan tu
Singapore, France, Netherlands 2018, 95’
subtitles: Polish and English
director: Yeo Siew Hua
screenplay: Yeo Siew Hua
cinematography: Hideho Urata
editing: Daniel Hui
music: Teo Wei Yong
sound: Damien Guillaume, Gilles Benardeu
cast: Peter Yu, Liu Xiaoyi, Luna Kwok, Jack Tan, Ishtiaque Zico, Kelvin Ho, George Low, Andie Chen
producer: Fran Borgia, Jean-Laurent Csinidis, Denis Vaslin, Dan Koh, Gary Goh
production: Akanga Film Asia, Films de Force Majeure, Volya Films
sales: Visit Films
language: Mandarin, English, Bengali
colouration: colour

Awards and festivals

IFF Locarno 2018 - Złoty Lampart / Golden Leopard, El Gouna Film Festival - Złota Gwiazda / Golden Star

Film description

Police detective Lok takes on a case of finding missing Chinese migrant worker, Wang. His partner seems to be indifferent about the mysterious disappearance but Lok leaves the land reclaimaition worksite deeply disturbed and keeps digging the case, also in order to deal with his sleeplessness. It turns out Wang suffered a worksite injury, with the broken arm he was assigned to drive the company's truck to transport goods and workers between dorms and construction sites. He made friends with one Bangladeshi worker but both of them are anxious about repatriation. Unable to sleep, Wang started frequenting a cybercafé in the middle of the night where he got fascinated by the tough and disenchanted young woman running the place. Yet he formed an online friendship with a mysterious gamer and disappeared without a trace. The mystery is hidden under the Singapore's reclaimed land.  

Yeo Siew Hua creates a nuanced depiction of Singapore's society and goes deep into the mechanisms of interactions between the inhabitants of seemingly harmonious, multicultural world city. In "A Land Imagined" he shows the industrial side of Singapore, amazes with visual style, enigmatic atmosphere and complicated non-linear storyline. If Lynchian nightmarish noir style is not really black but all in pastels, Yeo's noir is in fluorescent colours. 

Maja Korbecka

Yeo Siew Hua

Studied philosophy at the National University of Singapore, then graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Media Studies. Yeo Siew Hua is a member of the 13 Little Pictures film collective alongside Daniel Hui, Lei Yuan Bin, Liao Jiekai and Sherman Ong. In 2009 he wrote and directed his debut film, experimental "In The House of Straw", which premiered in competition at the Bangkok International Film Festival. He participated in the 2015 edition of Talents Tokyo. Yeo Siew Hua worked also as a director of photography for Ho Tzu Nyen’s "The Bohemian Rhapsody Project" and Sun Koh’s "The Lucky 7 Project". In 2014 he completed a documentary film about Singapore music scene's cult band The Observatory. 

Filmography:

2009 In the House of Straw

2012 Wormhole

2014 The Obs: A Singapore Story

2016 The Minotaur

2018 / Huan tu / A Land Imagined

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