PROGRAMME 5
| Date & Time | Location |
|---|---|
| Daily, 4-14 Sep 2025, 3pm | Level 5, Supreme Court Wing, UOB Theatrette (General Admission pass required)
|
| Thu, 11 Sep 2025, 12.30pm |
Level B1, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium, City Hall Wing (Free Admission)
|
About the Films
FLOW
By Souliya Phoumivong
A lone human figure watches as buffalo tail each other in a herd. Out of curiosity, he puts on a buffalo mask to blend in, but soon finds it hard to extricate himself. With the allegorical use of animated clay figurines, director Souliya Phoumivong critiques consumer society’s unthinking pursuit of material things. In Flow, those who choose to conform in the name of advancement are compared to cattle that blindly keep pace behind each other in a never-ending circle. It raises the question: What distinguishes man from beast?
TRIP AFTER
By Ukrit Sa-nguanhai
In the 1960s, the United States Information Service (USIS) mobile film units travelled across northeast Thailand to show their propaganda films to rural audiences. The Community Development Worker (1958), one of their most well-received works, was also filmed in a province in that region.
Trip After is a travel vlog inspired by the field trip reports of those mobile film units. Director Ukrit Sa-nguanhai revisits the locations where the original screenings or shoots took place, to trace, articulate, or reconstruct impressions of these past events.
THE HOUSE OF BRICK AND STONE
By Ananth Subramaniam
A young girl, Aarti, finds solace and guidance from an unlikely figurehead.
As docufiction, The House of Brick and Stone takes the events surrounding a real-world financial scam as the starting point for exploring the psyche of youths in search for meaning in an unstable world. The narrative moves between fact and fiction, and in doing so, blurs the line between truth and fabrication.
Explore Other Festival Sections
Opening Film
Magellan is an intimate portrait of the 16th century Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, starring Gael García Bernal in the titular role.
Art History, Co-authored
Art History, Co-authored presents films that explore seminal moments in art and film history.
Artist Films
Presenting films made by artists, this year includes an emphasis on early documentaries by Southeast Asian practitioners and a full-length movie independently made during the Marcos regime in the Philippines. National Gallery Singapore commissioned the digital restoration of two artists’ films on 16mm, Virgilio “Pandy” Aviado’s 1978 Footages and Briccio Santos’ Damortis, which are world premiering at Painting with Light.
Exhibition Readings
Exhibition Readings presents film programmes conceived in response to the art in the Gallery’s ongoing exhibitions.
Special Focus
The Special Focus section presents films that speak to the issues of the day. This year’s programme features the work of women filmmakers and artists who advocate for ways of being that are informed by an ethics of care. Bold, innovative, and profoundly relevant, these films ask the enduring question at the heart of artistic endeavour—what does it mean to be human?
Movement Pieces
Movement Pieces celebrates the visual poetry found in moving image art. It features short films that convey meaning through non-verbal modes of communication, like gesture and musicality, in lieu of dialogue.
This year’s programme is supported by the Québec Government and curated by guest programmer Philippe U. del Drago, who has served as Executive and Artistic Director of the International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal since 2018.
Closing
We Are Toast is an expanded cinema performance by Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen that utilises multiple 16mm film projectors to create a live film.