PUBLISHED September 16th, 2013 12:38 am | UPDATED July 25th, 2024 02:46 pm
Despite spending more than a third of her life in the States, Director of Innocents Wong Chen-Hsi has never left her hometown behind. Her debut feature film, which won her the Best Director award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and will be premiering here in Singapore later this month, came from her own observations and struggles about Singapore.
“I had started plans on a feature back in the States, but after a while, I realised I really wanted to do it out of Singapore. It’s my home and I just wanted to be part of the conversation here.”
Having spent 12 years away in the face of Singapore’s rapid evolvement, Director Wong had to deal with the many changes in the physical and social landscapes that she grew up in upon her return.
‘Singapore is changing really fast, and many people feel that they have been left behind. I’ve been away for so long that there are many things about this place that are half- remembered and half-forgotten for me.’
This spurred her to make Innocents, which follows the friendship between two children estranged from their own homes and community. Misunderstood and bullied, the two souls create their own world of escape in jungles and longkangs, away from a dysfunctional adult world driven by divorce, drunkenness, and darkness.
The themes of memory and the idea of things being lost and found gently interweave into the concepts of childhood and adulthood in this delicate coming-of-age story.
‘The childhood that is portrayed in the film is also a type of childhood that we no longer have, as well as a pastoral environment that has given way to extreme urbanization.’ says Wong.
All the locations the film was shot in – the old KTM railway tracks in Bukit Timah, the giant long kangs at Old Holland Road and an original school compound in Queenstown – have since been torn down. Some of the last trains that ran through Singapore were captured in the film.
‘I believe many Singaporeans will relate to Innocents – in terms forgotten pieces of memory, or objects from childhood that were left behind, or in terms of the many physical spaces of childhood that no longer exist.’
Innocents premiered at the prestigious Rome International Film Festival before screening at major festivals in Asia, the US, and Europe. It will premiere here in Singapore at The Arts House from September 26 to October 5 for a limited release. For ticketing information, please call 6332 6900 or check for more information at www.theartshouse.com.sg.