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| From radpics |
| Well, 9 directors with $250,000 each is about 2.25 million that Film commission is giving away. Amazing. Imagine that kind of funding coming into arts. === Oct 4, 2008 |
| Movie moolah |
| The nine film-makers have different interests: comedy, drama, supernatural, social commentary, horror and crime |
| By Boon Chan |
| The inaugural batch of recipients for the Singapore Film Commission's (SFC) New Feature Film Fund has been unveiled. Nine film-makers received $250,000 each to direct their feature films. In addition, they will also have their films distributed by cinema chain Golden Village Pictures. They include award-winning short film directors such as Boo Junfeng, Chai Yee Wei, Ellery Ngiam, Wee Li Lin, Yong Mun Chee, actor Alaric Tay, stage and television veteran T T Dhavamanni, as well as new faces Mika G. Yamaji and Chen-Hsi Wong. The award is aimed at encouraging emerging talents and Wee is the only one to have ever made a feature film, Gone Shopping (2007). Wong said: 'It is a start and hopefully getting the initial funding will allow the film to get off the ground. For first-time directors, it is pretty difficult to get funding so this is very, very encouraging.' Agreeing, Yamaji said: 'There are very few avenues for first-timers to get funding so I am very grateful for the opportunity.' Wee sees the award as an acknowledgement of her abilities. The vindication is particularly sweet as Gone Shopping, which cost $650,000 and made $31,000 at the box office, did not receive SFC funding. 'From my experience, corporate sponsors like to ask if the SFC is involved and it does affect their mindset,' she added. The fund is a new one announced by new director Kenneth Tan in June at the 10th anniversary of the Commission. Mr Tan said: 'The final nine stood out because they presented a balanced slate of genres - ranging from comedy to drama and social commentary, and touching on the supernatural, horror and crime.' GV guarantees screening at home 'Refreshing in tone and unique in content, they masterfully captured the myriad scent and flavours of Singapore life,' Mr Tan added. The SFC is looking to fund up to 12 feature films - excluding documentaries - each year, with a sum of up to $250,000 for each project. That works out to $3 million annually, excluding the $20,000 to promote each film upon completion. Applicants have to submit a proposal detailing the storyline, treatment and production budget, among others. Applicants who are not first-time film-makers also have to submit a marketing plan. The deadline this year was July 31. The now-defunct Film Incubator Programme, introduced in 2003 to help first-time film-makers make a feature film, used to hand out $100,000 per project. Projects which have benefited from the scheme include Han Yew Kwang's Unarmed Combat (2005) and Gilbert Chan and Joshua Chiang's S11 (2006). Budgets for home-grown feature films can range from a shoestring $200,000 for Eric Khoo's My Magic (2008) to $1.5 million for Jack Neo's Money No Enough 2 (2008). While several of the fund's recipients are still raising money, Chai had already planned to go ahead and make his supernatural crime drama Blood Ties. 'The question was whether it is going to be a $300,000 film or a $500,000 film.' According to the terms of the funding, the $250,000 should not constitute 100 per cent of the production budget as the SFC wants the production companies to take a stake in their own projects. If the proposed budget is less than $250,000, the SFC will fund up to 80 per cent of it. Out of 39 applications that the SFC received, 24 were shortlisted for pitching to a panel of judges comprising Mr Tan, Mr Michael Werner, co-chairman of Fortissimo Films, and Ms Maria Lorenzo, general manager of Golden Village Pictures' film distribution division. Chai said: 'One of the most attractive things about the award is that Golden Village is involved so it is guaranteed local distribution, which is a big deal for local film-makers. It is a one-stop pitch where you get your distribution set and also a government stamp of approval.' As Yong put it: 'I think it is quite amazing the SFC has taken the extra step of securing a theatrical distributor in Singapore.' Ms Lorenzo explained: 'We will evaluate the commercial viability of each film and those that are more suited for the local market will get a wider release.' In addition to the $250,000, the SFC may also give out up to $20,000 in advertising and promotion assistance for each project. Having gone though previous funding experiences, the SFC said: 'We learnt that our film- makers need A&P and distribution assistance, which will ensure that more Singaporeans can have opportunities to watch and learn about the films. 'Our previous schemes were production-centric and we noticed that, for first-timers, marketing and promotion are particularly important. The New Feature Film Fund will help to give a leg-up to our film-makers, especially first-timers.' Tay concurred: 'Getting the grant means we are required to set aside some money for marketing, which is an essential part of movie-making that many young emerging film-makers tend to overlook, including myself.' There have been SFC-funded films, including Unarmed Combat and S11, which struggled to find an audience upon completion and did not do well at the box office. For Ngiam, who has been trying to raise money for Forgotten Tears for the last two years, the award is a 'big boost'. 'It is almost like getting a scholarship to make a film. I see the light at the end of the tunnel,' he said. Nine chosen for New Feature Film Fund His short film Crammed, about parental pressure on children to succeed, won 2003's Asian New Force Critics Award at the Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Festival. Another short film, Jia Fu (Family Portrait), was named Best Film at Albania's Tirana International Film Festival in 2004. He will make Forgotten Tears, which took the Best Screenplay Award at the Asian American International Film Festival 2005 in New York. It is about a professional mourner who is unable to shed real tears for her daughter. Her background is in finance, but the former banker has turned to writing and directing full-time and has completed two short films with no formal training in film-making. The Japanese is a Singapore permanent resident. The comedic drama Koi is about Japanese food and love, and zeroes in on four encounters that take place on the fringes of the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. He has made four short films in the past three years, including Blood Ties, which won third prize at the Panasonic MDA Digital Film Fiesta last year. Blood Ties, the feature, is a crime drama with a supernatural twist as a detective returns from the dead to exact revenge. Since she won the Best Director award for Norman On The Air, a short film on a man in a make-believe relationship, at the 1997 Singapore International Film Festival, Wee has been a fixture in the local film-making scene. Forever is a dark comedy in which wedding vows turn into wedding woes and even wedding videos are not all that they appear to be. Her short film 9:30 (2004), about a man who calls his love every day at that time, won several awards and was included in the Kodak Emerging Film-makers Showcase at Cannes in 2004. In the crime drama Look Both Ways, four men from four corners of the world cross paths in a cheap hostel. He started out in theatre and has been writing and directing for television for the past five years with Blue River Pictures. The drama 24 Hours Of Anger tells the story of 14-year-old Prakash, his drug addict parents and his mentally-challenged brother. The actor, a familiar face in television productions such as The Yang Sisters, goes behind the camera for his first feature after directing and producing four short films. Thunder Boys is about second chances as a group of disparate people come together to win the championship for Bossaball, a game that combines soccer, volleyball and gymnastics. His award-winning short films include Keluar Baris (Malay for fall out) about a young man about to embark on national service. It was named best Singapore Short Film at the Singapore International Film Festival in April. The family drama Sandcastle is seen through the eyes of an adolescent boy and his partially-blind grandmother. She did her master of fine arts at the University of Southern California. Since coming back to Singapore 1 1/2 years ago, she has directed commercials. The Innocents - A Time For Youth explores the friendship between 12-year-old Sulian and a poor ostracised boy, Huat. |
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