Notes on Contemporary Singapore Cinema (1991-2007)

<jats:p>2006 was a record-making year for contemporary Singapore cinema. It saw an unprecedented release of ten feature films, including the first 3-D CGI film, Zodiac: The Race Begins (dir. Edward Foo; Cubix International). That year, Digital Media Academy made its foray into the local filmmaking scene for the first time, with three semi-professional DV films, namely, Unarmed Combat (dir. Han Yew Kwang), S11 (co-dir. Gilbert Chan &amp; Joshua Chiang), and The High Cost of Living (dir. Leonard Lai Yok Wai).1 These three films all received partial funding from the stated-funded Singapore Film Commission (SFC) , set up in 1998 for the purpose of nurturing the nation’s budding film industry by way of training personnel and funding productions, including co-sponsoring the annual Singapore International Film Festival. Finally Zhao Wei Films’ Be With Me (dir. &amp; scr. Eric Khoo, 2005) became the country’s first Oscars (Best Foreign Film) nominee; but this social drama which interweaves the autobiography of Theresa Chan, a real-life deaf and blind woman, with three fictional stories of love and longing in urban Singapore, was subsequently disqualified when the 2006 Academy Award committee decided that English was the dominant language in this otherwise multilingual HD-to-35mm film.</jats:p>