A LAND IMAGINED
A migrant worker from China goes missing at a Singapore land reclamation site after suffering from insomnia. The trail leads the police to discover more than just history buried under all that sand.
Director: Yeo Siew Hua
Writer: Yeo Siew Hua
(Co-)producers: Akanga Film Asia (SI), Films de Force Majeure (FR), Volya Films (NL)
Release Date: 01/08/2018
Partners: The Netherlands Film Fund, Hubert Bals Fund, Torino Film Lab Audience Design Fund 2018, CNC (Cinémas du monde), IMDA (New Talents Feature Grant), MM2 Entertainment, Vietnam Prize
Length: 95 minutes
Genre: Feature Film
Crew: Peter Yu as Lok Luna Kwok as Mindy Liu Xiaoyi as Wang Jack Tan as Jason Ishtiaque Zico as Ajit
DoP: Hideho Urata
Editor: Daniel Hui
Production design: James Page
Press & Reviews: “Unidentifiably new … a dreamy neo-noir that unfolds like a Singaporean ‘Chinatown’ … this movie does for sand what ‘Chinatown’ did for water“ – David Ehrlich, IndieWire “An ambitious filmmaker … The score is jazzy, the mood is fatalistic and there is the sense that the case of one individual will reveal bittersweet truths about the state of the nation.“ – Allan Hunter, Screen International “a huge boon to Singaporean cinema … it’s testament to the quality and clarity of vision of the smart, eerie tech-noir that it came out on top [at Locarno Festival], becoming the first Singaporean film to take the top prize at a major film festival … the film, lit as it is by buzzing fluorescent lights and scored with ominous synths, is a series of questions, asking what we mean when we talk of modernisation, of globalisation, of who we leave behind when we move forward … a pulse-pounding, frightening gem of a film, and now it has its name in the history books” 5/5, Top 10 Films of 2018 – Theo Howe, easternKicks “Yeo’s Golden Leopard-winning film opens in dreamy noir-like fashion before blooming into a sobering social drama concerning the lives of Singapore’s ignored and exploited immigrant and working-class communities” 3/4 – Wes Greene, Slant Magazine
