Film festival to strengthen sense of belonging to Singapore
What does Singapore mean to you? How have young Singaporeans benefited from the hard work of the older generations?
Miss Lan Yu wanted to offer a new perspective of a generation in Singapore who worked to survive, and to provide a better living for their family in her short film, $ingapura.
Miss Lan, 24, a writer, said: "The generation today gets to go overseas to do things like volunteering but the generations in the past did not. While I was writing the script, I reflected on the freedom I had to experience the film industry.
"Because my parents work hard to provide for the family, they don't get to try other things for themselves. So they wanted my sister and me to have that opportunity."
Her film is one of the seven nominees up for the ciNE65 Audience Choice Award, and will be screened as part of the inaugural ciNE65 Festival, which runs from June 5 to June 9.
Organised by Nexus, a government department responsible for total defence and national education, and mm2 Entertainment, the festival will showcase films curated by Nexus and partner Objectifs, a hub for photography and film enthusiasts, under the theme of Singapura.
FREE SCREENINGS
There will also be free public screenings of award-winning local short films and commissioned films from previous and current ciNE65 seasons.
This year, ciNE65 engaged local and regional film industry professionals such as Sunny Chan, Hideho Urata and Heiward Mak to be on the panel of judges.
With a total of 113 entries from both the student and open categories, the festival will culminate in the ciNE65 Awards Ceremony on June 13 where the winners of the ciNE65 Movie Makers Awards, Jury's Choice Awards and Audience Choice Awards will be announced.
Local actor Edmund Chen, a panel judge for ciNE65 2019, said: "We received a diverse range of short film entries that explored stories from the Merdeka Generation, our hawker culture and growing up in multicultural Singapore.
"It is heartening to know that our young film-makers - some even secondary school students - were able to encapsulate these stories into a short 3-minute film."
Mr Psalm Lew, Director of Community Engagement at Nexus, said: "ciNE65 is a national showcase for young film-makers to share films that deepen our connection to Singapore.
"We have more than 500 short films on the ciNE65 YouTube channel which tell inspiring Singaporean stories.
"ciNE65 short films are now part of the records in the National Archives of Singapore, alongside other works that contribute to our rich cultural heritage and national identity."
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