17th Singapore International Film Festival
April 15 - May 1, 2004

By Ron Holloway

For nearly two decades, the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF), the showcase of Southeast Asian cinema, has also served as a timely beacon for other key Asian film festivals. Pusan in Korea, Filmex in Tokyo, and Cinefan in New Delhi have benefitted from Singapore, simply because SIFF was on the scene first and did all the spadework. Link all four festivals together, and the committed cineaste can easily anticipate Asian entries selected later for Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Montreal, and elsewhere. Its secret? The SIFF is independently operated under a quartet of film professionals (Geoffrey Malone, Philip Cheah, Lesley Ho, and Teo Swee Ling), who concentrate entirely on quality Asian cinema. The Silver Screen Awards, inaugurated in 1991, are judged by a professional jury of peers. The Asian Films section a focuses on current trends, styles, and themes in the respective national cinematographies. And Singapore happens to be the only festival on the circuit with a combined NETPAC/FIPRESCI Jury – coordinated by the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema and the International Federation of Film Critics.

 The 17th SIFF (15 April to 1 May 2004) opened with Kim Ki-Duk’s Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring) (Korea/Germany), previously awarded the NETPAC Prize at Locarno. Set in a hermitage on an isolated island, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring comes across as a spiritual allegory rendered in stunning seasonal imagery. In this minimalist tale about two Buddhist monks, the older wisely leads the younger along the path of redemption after he has lost his way and committed murder. Kim himself plays the wayward monk at the crucial moment of his remorseful repentance. SIFF closed with Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodby Dragon Inn (Taiwan). A wistful, elegiac tribute to a masterpiece of bygone cinema, King Hu’s classic Dragon Inn (Hong Kong, 1968), it is as much a caustic farewell to an ornate theatre as a tip-of-the-hat to the martial arts genre pioneered by the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. Remarkable for its long takes and static shots, Goodbye Dragon Inn closes on a nostalgic note: two actors in the original, Tien Miao and Jun Shi, meet in front of the theater to reminisce. They were practically the only spectators in the audience.

 The festival’s Special Focus on the Philippines featured a retrospective tribute to actress-director Laurice Guillen, who also served as president of the Silver Screen Awards jury. Another retro, “Shaw in Blue,” focused on the erotic cinema of Li Han-Hsieng and Chu Yuan, key figures in the rise of postwar Hong Kong cinema under the Shaw Brothers. Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Uzak (Distant) (Turkey), awarded previously at Cannes, Istanbul, and Manila, was handed three more citations at Singapore (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Mehmet Emin Toprak). Prasana Vithanage’s Ira madiyama (August Sun) (Sri Lanka), received the combined NETPAC/FIPRESCI Prize. Set in the mid-1990s, when the civil war in Sri Lanka was at its height, it depicts how three individuals struggle to recover what they have lost and are willing to risk everything for what really counts in life: a longing for identity, a sense of dignity, and a yearning to love and be loved.

SILVER SCREEN AWARDS

ASIAN FEATURE FILM CATEGORY
Best Film
Uzak (Distant) (Turkey), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Best Director
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Uzak (Distant) (Turkey)
Special Jury Prize
Vibrator (Japan), Ryuichi Hiroki
Young Cinema Award
Panj é asr (At Five In The Afternoon) (Iran), Samira Makhmalbaf
Best Actor
Mehmet Emin Toprak, Uzak (Distant) (Turkey), dir Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Best Actress
Terashima Shinobu, Vibrator (Japan), dir Ryuichi Hirochi

NETPAC/FIPRESCI Award
Ira madiyama (August Sun) (Sri Lanka), Prasanna Vithanage

SINGAPORE SHORT FILM CATEGORY
No Award for Best Film
Best Director
Students of CHIJ (Toa Payoh), Conflict and Crisis
Special Jury Prize – Special Achievement Award
Innocent, Gek Li San, Ho Choon Hiong