SINGAPORE: Three films with Singapore participation - We Are All Strangers, Ah Girl and The Violinist - have received nominations at the 63nd Golden Horse Awards, including nods in major acting and film categories.
Singaporean film-maker Anthony Chen was nominated for the film We Are All Strangers, which is also in the running for Best Narrative Feature.
The film’s Yeo Yann Yann was nominated for Best Leading Actress, while Andi Lim is competing in the Best Supporting Actor category.
We Are All Strangers is also nominated for Best Makeup & Costume Design, Best Original Film Score and Best Film Editing.
Fellow local film-maker Ang Geck Geck of the film Ah Girl was nominated for Best New Director, while child actress Ong Xuan Jing is in the running for Best New Performer.
Ah Girl is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Animated film The Violinist picks up three nominations - for Best Animated Feature, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Film Score.
The winners will be announced at the Golden Horse Awards ceremony in Taipei on Nov 22.
We Are All Strangers, written by Chen, is a film about family relationships and unexpected life changes set in contemporary Singapore.
Currently showing in Singapore cinemas, it completes Chen’s Growing Up Trilogy, which began with Ilo Ilo (2013) and continued with Wet Season (2019).
We Are All Strangers stars Chen’s frequent collaborators Yeo and Koh Jia Ler in the lead roles, as well as Andi Lim and Regene Lim.
In the concluding chapter, Koh plays 21-year-old Junyang, whose relationship with his hawker father (played by Andi Lim) begins to unravel when Junyang and his girlfriend (Regene Lim) confront unexpected adult realities.
Into the household steps Yeo’s Bee Hwa, a vivacious Malaysian “beer lady” who unsettles the father-son dynamic – and gradually finds an unlikely home within the family as Junyang’s stepmother.
We Are All Strangers had its world premiere in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in February – the first Singapore film to compete for the Golden Bear top prize – and had travelled to festivals in Hong Kong, Italy, Australia and China before its homecoming.
We Are All Strangers has also been submitted as Singapore’s official entry in the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards in 2027.
Ah Girl is the first full-length feature film by Ang, who graduated from Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media in 2012 with a focus on film.
Set in Singapore in 1994, Ah Girl centres on a curious seven-year-old (Ong) caught between her separated parents while also looking after her younger sister. Told from a child’s perspective, the film follows her attempts to make sense of the instability and contradictions of the adult world around her.
Ah Girl won the Youth Jury Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in February, while Xuan Jing won Best Actress at the Malaysia Golden Global Awards in July and the Firebird Award for Best Actress at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in April.
The Violinist, directed by Singapore film-maker Ervin Han and Spanish animator Raul Garcia, is a Singapore-Spain-Italy co-production set against the upheaval of World War II in Singapore.
Currently showing in Singapore cinemas, with both English and Mandarin versions available, it follows aspiring violinists Kai (voiced by local actor Ayden Sng) and Fei (Fang Rong) against the upheaval of wartime Singapore and Malaya.
Amid its darker themes, The Violinist also returns to the idea of a “new sunrise” – words exchanged between wartime resistance hero Lim Bo Seng (voiced by Adrian Pang in the English version and Guo Liang in the Mandarin version) and Kai, carrying with them the hope of something better beyond difficult times. - The Straits Times/ANN
