Ask any local filmmaker and you’ll be told the same thing — making a successful picture here isn’t easy, with challenges from start to finish ranging from funding to censorship.
Given these, the logistical nightmare of making a film in another country would only amplify the difficulty level of the task — with added complications of understanding a foreign people and culture, finding separate accommodation, shooting locations and talent, to name just a few.
Yet, a group of four Singaporean broadcast media students made the latter happen — the first in Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information to make their final year project film in a European country, Spain.
The students’ work won the school’s Asian Television Award for best final year film and has been selected to screen at the Short Film Corner of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, where distributors, sales agents and film festival programmers may pick selected films up.
The group of film students, who graduated in the middle of last year, was led by writer-director Edwin Ho. Now preparing to pursue his Master of Fine Arts in film directing, the 26-year-old told Yahoo! Singapore he and his groupmates were “delighted and superbly excited” to receive the news.
“I think it is a small step as an emerging filmmaker like myself to be at Cannes… to get some experience in the international film industry and to see how things really work at such a high level,” he said in a recent interview.
“I’m a little nervous as well, (being) like a small fish swimming in a pool of sharks while I’m there, but I’m pretty sure it will be an eye opener!”
Working in Barcelona
The idea to produce a “foreign-based” film came to Ho when he was doing a six-month internship in Barcelona, where he said he fell in love with the city and wanted to write about it.
“Barcelona is definitely a very charming city with a lot of things happening… especially in arts and culture,” said Ho, who shared that he heard a lot of interesting stories of people who went there, fell in love and stayed on even though they did not initially plan to.
“I saw and experienced things that were neither right nor wrong, but in the grey area… (people here) were just really open-minded to freedom of expression, of sexuality and experimentation.”
From there, he spent six months working on a script, did site recces and got a number of people he met in Barcelona on-board to help with his project — including a professional Spanish actress as well as his director of photography — before returning to Singapore to work more closely with his groupmates Grace Thia, Trixie Yap and Felicia Ang.
The four later returned to Spain for about a month for pre-shoot preparation, principal photography and a few days to work on their first rough cut of the film, which explores themes of uncertainty in life and relationships, and how the lead character, Juan, finds comfort and ease in volatility.
Finding funding
The first question that of course would come to one’s mind, though, is how four college students were able to find the funding involved in making a film overseas. The answer? A long, tedious and arduous process riddled with rejections and in many cases, complete non-responses.
“We must have written in to over 100 foundations and organisations to try to pitch our idea to them,” said Ho, who added that he and his groupmates were prepared to channel their own money into the project. “The process was really tough, and we felt really dejected at some points… we’re glad that we (eventually) saw the light at the end of the tunnel!”
Ho said he and his group were not sure if they would be able to break even (they eventually did) from the money they put in from their own pockets, and had almost no funding at all up till three weeks before their scheduled shoot in Barcelona.
Much to their relief, the group received support from the Catalan Tourism Board, the Media Development Authority and a school-based grant, as well as contributions from a few small businesses and support from a couple of production studios.
Meanwhile, Ho plans to eventually write and direct his own feature-length film, after spending time in his masters’ course and gaining more life experience.
“I would like to continue to make films… I’m definitely seeing my career in the film industry,” he said. “I hope to spend the time in film school to really shape my voice and style, and to find a balance in my values for filmmaking.”
Ho’s film, El Gris Perfecto, will screen in Cannes’ Short Film Corner in May. Watch the trailer here:
S"pore student filmmakers break new ground in Barcelona
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