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Singapore Festival to Return as an In-Person Event

The Singapore International Film Festival is to be held as an in-person event this year, after operating as an online-offline hybrid in 2020. It will open with Indonesian filmmaker Edwin’s “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” and run Nov. 25- Dec. 5, 2021.

With a new program director, Thong Kay Wee the festival will be aligned as five new thematic strands: Foreground, Milestone, Standpoint, Undercurrent and Domain. It will also maintain its Singapore Panorama section dedicated to local works and its familiar Asian feature competition and Southeast Asian short film competition.

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The competition includes: Palestinian director Mohamed Diab’s “Amira”; Thai director Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s “Anatomy of Time”; Aizhan Kassymbek’s “Fire”; Panah Panahi’s ”Hit The Road”; Chinese director Qiu Jiongjiong’s “A New Old Play”; Indian Oscar-contender “Pebbles,” by P.S. Vinothraj; Bangladesh’s Oscar contender “Rehana” by Abdullah Mohammad Saad; “Whether the Weather is Fine,” by Filipino director Carlo Francisco Manatad; Cambodian Oscar contender “White Building” by Kavich Neang; and Indonesia’s Oscar contender “Yuni,” by Kamila Andini.

“If 202 was the year we stepped out of our comfort zones to make SGIFF a hybrid format, I am proud to say we have come full circle emerging stronger than ever and taking the gathering back to the cinemas, where we experience the true magic of cinema,” said Emily J. Hoe, the festival’s executive director.

The Milestone section will include Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Spanish-language “Memoria,” Malaysian director Tan Chui Mui’s “Barbarian Invasion,” Australian refugee documentary “Those Left Waiting,” and first ever Cambodian sci-fi movie “Karmalink.” Domain is home to British collective film “Nightcleaners” and the Hong Kong political protest film “Inside the Red Brick Wall.” Standpoint is the frame for urgent personal and political works including “Some Women,” by Singapore’s first transgender film director Quen Wong, and “Mr Bachman and his Class, by Maria Speth, which won the Silver Bear in Berlin earlier this year.

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