Wednesday, October 2, 2013

6 nominations at the Golden Horse but...

Wow! That’s my reaction when I heard that Singaporean director Anthony Chen's film "Ilo Ilo" has earned 6 nominations at the Taipei Golden Horse Awards. The Golden Horse is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) movie award ceremony for Chinese cinema and for a Singapore film directed by a Singaporean to be able to bagged 6 nominations is something truly to be proud of!

This is not the first time "Ilo Ilo" got an international award. Last month, the film won 3 awards in Russia at the 11th Pacific Meridian Film Festival in Vladivostok. Not only that, Chen also won the Camera d'Or, the award for best feature-length film by a first-time feature film director, at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in May.

However as many foreign awards won by Chen and the film, the film faced one big hurdle in Singapore; it is made in Singapore. I know this may seem very strange to some foreigners but in Singapore, Singaporeans ignored Singapore-made movies, shows and music. Things are so bad that some movies made in Singapore marketed themselves as “joint-production” with other countries like Thailand and Malaysia just to boost their box-office takings here on the island.

To the surprise of no one, the movie only got a 1-2 weeks run here in Singapore. Personally I think it's great that "Ilo Ilo" got 6 nominations at the Golden Horse, but will it change the landscape of the filming industry in Singapore.

I doubt it. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great observation. This attitude pervades the country.It starts from the top. "Cambridge educated". "Harvard educated" denote par excellence. Why not "NUS educated"or "NTU educated"? Even when that preson received his basic education here but went to Harvard for a Masters in Government for one year or less he would be hailed as Harvard educated e.g. GCT.

Ghost said...

The problem I see is one of culture. Singaporeans are not proud of "the Singapore culture" so we always look to foreign culture (movie, TV, books, music etc) as superior. Even when our home-grow products win foreign awards, it make little to no difference.