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"You know him?" Film Movement has revealed an the trailer for an indie thriller titled Stranger Eyes, from Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua. This first premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival last fall, and it also played at the New York & London Film Festivals. After the disappearance of his baby daughter, Darren receives mysterious DVDs containing videos of his private life and most intimate moments. When he finds the mysterious voyeur, Darren turns the gaze around and confronts his own image in the other. "The truth of his identity is more complicated than it seems." Featuring legendary Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng. Referencing other surveillance thrillers like Michael Haneke's Cache and Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua's latest film is a timely update to the genre as a meditation on voyeurism in the digital age and the contradictory desires around being seen. Stranger Eyes stars Wu Chien-ho,...

Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing has wrapped production on Giraffe Pictures’ magic-realist short film “Small, Sharp & Green” (working title).

Giraffe Pictures completed production on Anthony Chen’s upcoming feature “We Are All Strangers” two months prior.

Written and directed by Singaporean filmmaker Ivan Tan, the contemporary tale explores profound questions of memory, truth, and the indomitable spirit of a woman. The film was shot in Malaysia with cinematography by Dp Kartik Vijay, whose credits include “Abang Adik,” “Yen and Ai-Lee,” and “The Garden of Evening Mists.”

Tan, who trained at the National Film and Television School in the U.K., previously won the jury prize at the Locarno Film Festival for his short film “Tadpoles.” His subsequent shorts “A Bed Without A Quilt” and “Another Day, Another Time” competed at the Singapore International Film Festival and La Cabina Medium Film Festival, respectively.

The cast also features Chinese actor Zhang Yu,...

Following the excellent “A Land Imagined” that netted him a Golden Leopard from Locarno among other awards, Yeo Siew Hua has come up with a new movie that also attempts to stretch the conventions of genre filmmaking by incorporating intense art-house elements in it.

Stranger Eyes is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas

The film throws the viewer directly into what is happening, as we witness a couple, Junyang and Peiying, whose baby has been missing for months, checking old home videos. The next scene with a video though, is a completely different thing, as a DVD that arrived at their apartment shows recordings of them that they have not shot themselves. More DVDs arrive, portraying more and more intimate moments of the couple, with the two, and the ever-present Shuping, Junyang’s mother, eventually going to the police, where officer Zheng suggests patience and installing cameras...

Following the excellent “A Land Imagined” that netted him a Golden Leopard from Locarno among other awards, Yeo Siew Hua has come up with a new movie that also attempts to stretch the conventions of genre filmmaking by incorporating intense art-house elements in it.

Stranger Eyes screened at Venice International Film Festival

The film throws the viewer directly into what is happening, as we witness a couple, Junyang and Peiying, whose baby has been missing for months, checking old home videos. The next scene with a video though, is a completely different thing, as a DVD that arrived at their apartment shows recordings of them that they have not shot themselves. More DVDs arrive, portraying more and more intimate moments of the couple, with the two, and the ever-present Shuping, Junyang’s mother, eventually going to the police, where officer Zheng suggests patience and installing cameras in the apartment complex the couple lives in.

With Stranger Eyes, ascendant Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua transmogrifies what looks at first like a creepy crime thriller into something much more tricksy, potent and ultimately puzzling, yet still rooted in recognizable human fragility. Already scheduled to travel to further festivals after its premiere in competition at Venice, this cerebral, downbeat mediation on voyeurism, exhibitionism, identity, guilt and loss — all that fun stuff — could ride a wave of critical support to niche distribution beyond Asia, especially in cinephile markets.

Yeo’s work is known for its playful, pretzel-y approach to chronology and nested narratives, and while Stranger Eyes doesn’t dive as far as his A Land Imagined did into the meta end of the pool, it gets its feet wet. Like its predecessor, it starts in the middle and then flashes back, and drops in strange moments where time seems to shift for characters who overlap and parallel one another.

After becoming the first Singaporean filmmaker to win Locarno’s Golden Leopard for A Land Imagined, Yeo Siew Hua will break new ground again with mystery thriller Stranger Eyes, which is the first Singapore film to premiere in-competition at the Venice Film Festival.

The Singapore-Taiwan-France-u.S. co-production stars a Taiwanese ensemble cast featuring legendary actor-director Lee Kang-Sheng, Wu Chien-Ho, Annica Panna and Vera Chen. Malaysian actor Pete Teo and Singaporean actress Xenia Tan also appear in the film.

Yeo conceived the Stranger Eyes project more than 10 years ago but he and Akanga Film Asia’s veteran producer Fran Borgia hit several “dead ends” with funding.

“We decided that we were going to try something else and pitch different projects, so that’s how A Land Imagined came about,” Yeo told Deadline.

A Land Imagined, Yeo’s second feature, also went on to clinch Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Film...

There are different ways for a movie to execute a slow burn, but the ones I admire most withhold not their stories, but their identities. Stranger Eyes has a straightforward thriller premise and a clear interest in surveillance, both of which are clear from the outset, but its shape is hardly a straight line. As it leads us around corners into places we didn't expect to be, what the movie has to say about surveillance slowly comes into view. For those with the patience to sit mired in uncertainty, Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua's film offers unexpected rewards.

Stranger Eyes Director Yeo Siew HuaRelease Date September 5, 2024Writers Yeo Siew HuaCast Mila Troncoso, Maryanne Ng-Yew, Xenia Tan, Pete Teo, Vera Chen, Anicca Panna, Lee Kang-sheng, Wu Chien-HoCharacter(s) Mother Wu, Ling Po, Officer Zheng, Shuping, Peiying, Lao Wu, Junyang, AnaGenres Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Crime Stranger Eyes Is Built Like A...

Full of false leads and meandering shifts of focus, Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua’s story of a missing child initially appears to be a straight-up thriller. Here is a young couple with their child Little Bo, being filmed in the park by Bo’s overbearing grandmother. Here they are at home, miserable shells of their former selves, watching all the home movies they can find in the hope of finding a hint of what might have happened to Little Bo, who has now been missing for three months.

Her father Junyang (Wu Chien-ho) comes in with sandwiches; he could be sleep-walking. Peiying (Annica Panna), her mother, hasn’t bothered to dress properly; she seems to be all eyes, staring at the screen. There is no hint of the glamorous clubber we will see later, as the films of the family’s lives before their loss keep popping up. The...

“Stranger Eyes,” Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua‘s feature on modern surveillance culture, has been sold by Playtime to a raft of territories ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The film, which is in contention for the Golden Lion at Venice, revolves around a young couple who is grappling with the mysterious disappearance of their baby daughter when they start receiving strange videos, realizing that someone has been filming their daily life. The police set up surveillance around their home to catch the voyeur, but the family starts to crumble as secrets unravel under the scrutiny.

In the run up to its premiere on the Lido, the film has been sold by Playtime to Italy (Europictures), Spain (La Aventura), Baltics (A-One), Portugal (Leopardo Filmes) and Benelux (September Films).

The helmer explained in the press notes for the film that Singapore was the ideal backdrop for...

The first trailer has been unveiled for Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua‘s “Stranger Eyes,” which is in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival.

In the film, after the mysterious disappearance of their baby daughter, a young couple receives strange videos and realises someone has been filming their daily life — even their most intimate moments. The police sets up surveillance around their home to catch the voyeur, but the family starts to crumble as secrets unravel under the scrutiny of eyes watching them from all sides.

Yeo, whose “A Land Imagined” won the Locarno Film Festival’s top prize in 2018, has cast acclaimed Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-Sheng (“What Time Is It There?”, “Days”) and Wu Chien-Ho (“A Sun”) in the film. Other key cast include newcomers Anicca Panna and Xenia Tan, and veterans Vera Chen (“Boluomi”) and Pete Teo (“Barbarian Invasion”).

The film is structured as a Singapore-Taiwan-France-u.

Yeo Siew Hua, the Singaporean director whose “A Land Imagined” won the Locarno Film Festival’s top prize in 2018, has cast acclaimed Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-Sheng and Wu Chien-Ho (“A Sun”) in his new “Stranger Eyes.”

The film, a thriller with domestic surveillance at its core, is currently shooting. It is set to wrap post-production by early 2024 and start a festival run thereafter. International sales are handled by France’s Playtime.

The Golden Horse-nominated Wu plays Darren, a struggling young father whose baby daughter has gone missing. When mysterious footage appears of his private and intimate life, Darren suspects that his neighbor Goh, a supermarket supervisor, is the voyeur linked to his daughter’s disappearance. Goh is portrayed by Lee, who is best-known for his three-decade-plus collaboration with Golden Lion-winning director Tsai Ming-liang. Increasingly frantic, Darren takes it upon himself to stalk Goh, meaning that the hunted becomes hunter.

“It...

The comeback movie of indie filmmaker and pioneer of Malaysian New Wave Cinema, Tan Chui Mui, after 10 years of directing hiatus, is an unpredictable, genre-fluid meta film. “Barbarian Invasion” was realised under the project “Back to Basics” by Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited and Heaven Pictures, that assigned a budget of Rmb¥1,000,000 to filmmakers and challenged them to produce a high-quality film without frills. Her work is doing rather well in the festival circuit, having won the Jury Grand Prix prize, one of the two top honours at the Golden Goblet Awards, in conjunction with the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival.

“Barbarian Invasion“ is screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

The film follows Moon Lee (directress Tan Chui Mui) a well-respected actress who’s taken few years off after having a child and a painful divorce. She is immediately introduced as exhausted and barely coping with her...

The comeback movie of indie filmmaker and pioneer of Malaysian New Wave Cinema, Tan Chui Mui, after 10 years of directing hiatus, is an unpredictable, genre-fluid meta film. “Barbarian Invasion” was realised under the project “Back to Basics” by Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited and Heaven Pictures, that assigned a budget of Rmb¥1,000,000 to filmmakers and challenged them to produce a high-quality film without frills. Her work is doing rather well in the festival circuit, having won the Jury Grand Prix prize, one of the two top honours at the Golden Goblet Awards, in conjunction with the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival.

“Barbarian Invasion” is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

The film follows Moon Lee (directress Tan Chui Mui) a well-respected actress who’s taken few years off after having a child and a painful divorce. She is immediately introduced as exhausted and barely coping with her...

“Barbarian Invasion” wins the Jury Grand Prix in the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival Golden Goblet Awards on 19 June. The film is presented by Heaven Pictures, in co-production with The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.

Tan Chui Mui, a staple of the Malaysian New Wave, returns to the international film scene with third feature film “Barbarian Invasion”, filling the roles of director, writer and lead actor, her poignant and fun piece on body sovereignty, motherhood and martial arts. She brings much of her old crew back in front of the cameras, Pete Teo, James Lee and Bront Palare give strong performances in the film while Woo Ming Jin produces alongside Bianca Balbuena, known for her work with Lav Diaz.

In awarding “Barbarian Invasion”, the jury stated, “This film takes a genre that is familiar to us all and turns it on its tail. Its handling of pace is pitch perfect,...

Tan Chui Mui returns to the international film scene with Barbarian Invasion, her poignant and fun piece on body sovereignty, motherhood and martial arts. Barbarian Invasion will launch at the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff), in competition for the Golden Goblet Award.

Of the selection, Director Tan says, “There will be many old friends attending Shanghai International Film Festival. I felt like a mischievous kid, I’d put a frog in a box, now just anxiously waiting, anticipating, trying to imagine their face when they open the box….”

Tan Chui Mui

Barbarian Invasion follows a washed-up actor who is offered a comeback opportunity after a devastating divorce only to find her ex-husband cast opposite her.

Tan, a staple of the Malaysian New Wave which swept the festival circuit by storm in the early noughts, brings much of her old crew back in front of the camera. Pete Teo, James...

As it happens to the main character of the film, the director Liang Ying’s last 5 years has been some kind of a chaotic trip. He directed the film “When Night Falls” in 2012, where he treated the events occurred in China on 2008, where a man was sentenced to death for killing 6 police officers . As a result of this controversial project, the director Liang Ying was pressured by the authorities and had to go into exile in Hong Kong, where he has been living all these recent years.

“A Family Tour” is streaming on Mubi

“A Family Tour” is his first feature film after that incident, a project softly touching the documentary genre, where he treats in a very personal way all the problems and experiences he had to go through (and might be going through) these past years since 2012, because despite a few differences in some identities, the main conflict...

Hong Kong Arts Centre: Moving Images announces their May programme, which includes their regular Golden Scene Selection, Independently Yours: Together We Stand and Independently Yours: Taking Back the Legislature + Inside the Red Brick Wall as well as the Hong Kong Arts Centre x Hong Kong Film Festival – Independently Yours: Memories to Choke On, Drinks to Wash Them Down, the delayed February programme which has finally been rescheduled for June.

Golden Scene Selection – June

Venue: Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre

Date: 2020.06.23 – 2020.06.29

Price: Standard ticket: $80. Tickets are now available at Putyourself.in.

“Golden Scene Selection”, proudly presented by the Hong Kong Arts Centre (Hkac) and Golden Scene Company Limited, will bring the audience a series of cherry-picked selections from around the world at the Hkac.

Screening Schedule

23/6 (Tue) 8pm Radioactive (Preview)

24/6 (Wed) 8pm Beyond The Dream (Preview)*

25/6 (Thu) 8pm A Family Tour*

26/6 (Fri) 8pm After the Wedding

27/6 (Sat) 3pm...

As it happens to the main character of the film, the director Liang Ying’s last 5 years has been some kind of a chaotic trip. He directed the film “When Night Falls” in 2012, where he treated the events occurred in China on 2008, where a man was sentenced to death for killing 6 police officers . As a result of this controversial project, the director Liang Ying was pressured by the authorities and had to go into exile in Hong Kong, where he has been living all these recent years.

“A Family Tour” is his first feature film after that incident, a project softly touching the documentary genre, where he treats in a very personal way all the problems and experiences he had to go through (and might be going through) these past years since 2012, because despite a few differences in some identities, the main conflict of “A Family Tour” is the exact...

Nicolas Cage, accompanied by Australian actress and producer Nikki Whelan, trod the red carpet on Saturday night as part of the opening festivities at the third edition of the International Film Festival and Awards.

Set as a talent ambassador, Cage held small group seminars earlier on Saturday. On Sunday he will hold a masterclass.

His presence helped compensate for a couple of high-profile mainland Chinese talent absentees, presumably summoned North for the Huabiao Awards taking place in China the same evening.

The breezy opening event included a specially composed song and dance routine, a whirl of clips from films that will unspool over the coming week, and an elaborate ticket-slotting set-piece.

International guests in attendance included director of Copenhagen Pix Film Festival Jacob Neiiendam; director of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival Tiina Lokk; director of Sydney Film Festival, Nashen Moodley; artistic director of Chicago International Film Festival, Mimi Plauche; director of Busan International Film Festival,...

Three filmmakers explained how they’re using music to deliver political messages and explore their countries’ complex histories.

Three Southeast Asian filmmakers discussed how they’re using different forms of music – from Indonesia’s Krongcong genre to hip-hop – to deliver political messages and explore their countries’ complex histories, in a session on Tiff’s Crosscut Asia section on Friday.

Treb Monteras II described how he used rap to talk about the Philippines’ martial law era and the current war on drugs in his recent festival hit Respeto. “The film is really about the unending cycle of violence in the Philippines...

Screening at multiple festivals and nominated for awards at both Locarno and Hamburg for ‘Best Political Film’ and ‘Best Film’ respectively, the semi autobiographical ‘A Family Tour’ is Ying Liang’s first film since 2006’s critically acclaimed ‘When Night Falls’. The prevailing years since being the inspiration for his new feature, Ying tells the story of a young independent filmmaker using a film festival in Taiwan as a way to spend time with her exiled mother.

A Family Tour is screening at Busan International Film Festival

‘A Family Tour’ travels us through Taiwan with our protagonists film called ‘Mother of One Recluse’, an identical story to that of Ying’s own ‘When Night Falls’ with a tale of a distraught mother who’s son has been accused of a very serious crime. Travelling with her husband and young child, they follow her exiled mother’s tour bus under the ever...

Gyorgi Palfi’s “His Master’s Voice” will line up against Fruit Chan’s “Three Husbands” and Veit Helmer’s “The Bra” in the main competition section of the Tokyo International Film Festival. Ralph Fiennes’ “The White Crow” will also receive its Asian premiere in competition.

The festival announced its full line up Tuesday in Tokyo. The festival will run Oct 25. – Nov. 3, 2018 at venues around the Japanese capital. It previously announced Japanese films, “Another World” and “Just Only Love” in main competition.

Another earlier announcement revealed that the festival will open with Bradley Cooper’s Lady Gaga-starring “A Star is Born.” The festival will close with “Godzilla: The Planet Eater,” the third and final part in the animated “Godzilla” trilogy. Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s “The House Where the Mermaid Sleeps” was Tuesday confirmed as a second closing film.

The 16-film competition selection is balanced between Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas,...

Perhaps it’s because “The Family Tour” is semi-autobiographical that this intelligently affecting story of exile and displacement is Ying Liang’s most highly polished film to date. Or more likely, it’s because the five years since his previous feature, “When Night Falls,” have matured his already well-honed aesthetic. Dating back to his powerful 2006 debut “Taking Father Home,” the dissident director has been casting a sharp, unflattering light on Chinese society deformed by decades of Party rule. Currently in exile himself after running afoul of the government, Ying has externalized his conflicted feelings of disconnection in this story of an independent mainland filmmaker living in Hong Kong who can only meet up with her mother in Taiwan, where she has booked her on a strictly monitored tour of the island. Sensitive and surprisingly intimate given Ying’s fondness for long shots, “Family Tour” should travel widely via festival bookings.

Pusan International Film Festival

BUSAN, South Korea -- Filmmaker James Lee premieres the third part of a loose trilogy on love and relationships in modern Malaysia, following "Before We Fall in Love Again" and "Things We Do When We Fall in Love." For those who found Lee's sparse dialogue and minimalist action mesmerizing, "Waiting for Love" will be a treat. For everyone else, it will be a chore. "Waiting for Love" will likely make the festival circuit rounds, particularly fests that screened the earlier films.

In three segments unfolding in what appears to be the same apartment, couples wrangle over relationships and try to determine where to go next. In the first, Lim and Amelia (Lim Kien Lee and Amelia Chen) have been together for a moderate amount of time. He wants to get married; she's not sure they have a future. They argue over a mysterious letter Amelia received from another man and what the letter -- and her reluctance to toss it in the trash -- mean.

In the second section, Pete and Bernice (Pete Teo and Bernice Chauly) have been together even longer. She works; he stays at home, the result of an unidentified illness. She's clearly more engaged in the relationship.

Rounding out the film are Amy and Lai (Amy Len and Loh Bok Lai), a young couple most likely at the beginning of a relationship. They still take the time to be outwardly tender and caring.

As in Lee's preceding films, "Waiting" is light on dialogue and music, leaving the actions, reactions and motivations of the characters open to interpretation. The final entry in the trilogy is less reliant on plot (if it can be said the earlier films had conventional plots), and is a more thematic piece. Lee once again keeps his camera static and cuts to a minimum, with actual words merely mumbled.

With each pair at a turning point in their lives, the subtlest of looks or pauses potentially contain great meaning. Lee is a master of distant observation. Once again, he proves his ability to create reasonably vivid characters with little or few details to work with.

"Waiting for Love" does feel like a rehash of his own earlier, stronger films. In an emergent Malaysian cinema, the refined elegance of Woo Ming Jin's "The Elephant and the Sea" and the complexity of Tan Chui Mui's "Love Conquers All" are the benchmarks to which "Waiting" doesn't measure up.

WAITING FOR LOVE

A Doghouse73 Pictures, Da Huang Pictures production

Credits:

Screenwriter-director-producer: James Lee

Director of photography: Jimmy Ishmael

Production designer: Tan Hooi Ching

Editor: James Lee

Cast:

Amy: Amy Len

Bernice: Bernice Chauly

Pete: Pete Teo

Lai: Loh Bok Lai

Amelia: Amelia Chen

Lim: Lim Kien Lee

Running time -- 73 minutes

No MPAA rating...