Period Experiments by Tania Sng

Last year, a group of filmmaking pals brought their chummy relationship even closer by creating an omnibus of short experimental pieces called 'Infinity'. The pals are Victric Thng (who led the movement), Yeo Lee Nah, Lillian Wang, Green Zeng, June Chua, Gozde Zehnder, Russel Zehnder and Ming. Victric said he hoped more people would step forward to join them in their push to give experimental films more attention. This year, The Substation's decided to give due attention to experimental films by organising the 1st Experimental Film Forum. Without surprise, Victric, a big champion of experimental films, had an active hand in making this possible.

Possible one of the greatest finds in curating this forum is Tania Sng. For those who know her, we know her as one whose worn many hats, most notably being an executive producer of Cages, running her production company previously, and being one of the Lucky 7 directors. But the second night of the Film Forum gave the audience a sense of what might be closer to her heart - making films. In particular, her experimental slant. 

Some of the stronger and more memorable pieces in her line up of films tonight included the thoughtfully layered 'Little Girl Shoes', the angst-filled 'Huo Shui', the subversive 'Singapore Dream'  and the conceptually clever 'One Track Vision'. Victric referred to them as 'period' pieces and quite aptly so because there were made many years ago. Visually and emotionally, they evoked a ambience that seems a little foreign. Tania questions society unabashedly in her films, almost with a lot of anger, which seems to have dissipated or made irrelevant today because some things have moved on or evolved. So, naturally, it became very interesting to know what went through her mind when she conceptualised the works back in her fresh-grad days of transiting back to Singapore from the US.