A selection of shorts on Sonic Nation

Village Neighbours (2020)
Original Title: Jiran Sekampung
Director: Toh Hun Ping
Runtime: 6 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, English with Subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Singapore and its evolving village neighbours, in strings of place names spoken or sung on film, spanning seven decades of the 20th century. This found footage film is named after a similarly-titled 1966 Malay-language Cathay-Keris feature movie produced in Singapore and directed by Hussain Haniff.

Sunshine Singapore (1972)
Director: Rajendra Gour
Runtime: 7 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: English
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Sunshine Singapore features the sights of sunny Singapore set to music. The film carries the hopes of a young filmmaker, the beauty of a young nation, tempered by the familiarity of daily life.

Hock Hiap Leong (2001)
Director: Royston Tan
Runtime: 7 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: Mandarin with English subtitles
Rating: PG
Synopsis

Hock Hiap Leong features the famous coffeeshop formerly on Armenian Street that was facing closure after 55 years in business. A casualty of the many urban redevelopment projects that has overtaken Singapore after the 90s, Royston Tan highlights nostalgic yearning with bold and tongue-in-cheek reverie.

Hampshire Road (2019)
Director: Min-Wei Ting
Runtime: 7 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: No dialogue
Rating: G

Synopsis

With one take, the camera traverses the exterior of a single structure in Singapore, to see how space is constructed and used to monitor and channel migrant workers onto buses back to dormitories. The space was busy every Sunday until the pandemic hit. It stands at present empty and unused.

MRT City (2023)
Director: Kevia Tan
Runtime: 9 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: English, Mandarin with Subtitles
Rating: Exempt

Synopsis

A slice-of-life documentary shot handheld without a viewfinder, MRT City captures the chance encounters of a diverse range of people on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system from October to November 2023. Through candid interviews, commuters reveal “what real life is about” whilst moving through the efficiently-run transport system.

Downstairs (2009)
Director: Tan Diya Lydia
Runtime: 17 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: Malay, Mandarin, English with Subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

“Downstairs” is a colloquial term used by many in Singapore when referring to the public areas below their apartments. The film documents life in the neighbourhood through the personal stories of the residents.\

Spirited City (2023)
Director: Ang Siew Ching
Runtime: 10 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: English with Subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Spirited City features Bukit Brown, a once-prominent cemetery in Singapore that was reshaped by the encroaching hands of metropolitan city-building. Using a combination of video, collage and stop-motion, Ang Siew Ching provides a time capsule that demonstrates the ongoing tensions between culture, nature and infrastructure.

Saudade (2020)
Director: Russell Morton
Runtime: 20 mins
Country: Singapore
Language: Kristang with English Subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Told in the form of a triptych, Saudade breathes life into the mesmerising traditions of the Kristang, the Portuguese creole community in Singapore—one that is slipping through the flows of urban migration and modernisation, leaving only folklore and myth for an ethnic group challenged with loss and displacement.