SINGAPORE Publications / index / New Asian Currents

Moveable Feast

Director: Kelvin Tong, Sandi Tan, jasmine Ng Kin-kia
Script: Kelvin Tong
Photography: Lucas Jodogne, Mary van Kets
Editing: jasmine Ng Kin-kia
Music, Sound: Paolo Villgas
Producer: Kelvin Tong, Sandi Tan
Source: MULTI-STORY COMPLEX / TRICYCLE FILMWORKS
1007, Lower Delta Road #08-04, 099310 SINGAPORE
Phone: 65-270-4859 / Fax: 65-733-0070 (attn. jasmine Ng)
e-mail: kinkia@pacific.net.com
SINGAPORE / 1996 / English / Color / 35mm / 14 min

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Kelvin Tong
Sandi Tan
jasmine Ng Kin-kia

Sandi Tan, film critic for Singapore's main newspaper, The Strait Times, is now pursuing her Masters in Film at Columbia University, New York. Jasmine Ng, film/video editor, majored in film and TV at New York University and Kelvin Tong graduated from the National University of Singapore and is the current film reviewer/journalist at the Singapore Strait Times. All three, 25, are co-directors for Moveable Feast. This is their first film together, having individually worked on various other film and theater projects. The three are now working on a new short film, The Origin of Species, about people with strange habits.

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A day in the gastronomic life of a Singaporean man whose insatiable taste for all kinds of food consumed in all kinds of places leads him to situations both strange and wondrous. The film seeks the hidden emotional intestine that links the stomach to the heart.

From Press Files

... What inspired the film?
(Ms. Sandi Tan) and her friends picked the subject matter, she said, inspired by the food stains on their notes. Ms. Tan, 25, said: "We had a huge bunch of brainstorming notes about what our film would be and staring at us were these food stains."
Co-director Kelvin Tong says they then decided to make a film not about food, but about the rituals around eating, a cultural portrait of multi-racial Singapore, about faces and places past and present.

With her co-directors Jasmine Ng and Kelvin Tong, both 25, the 16mm movie was shot over two very packed weekends last December. Film Expenses added up to $2,500.
They asked for film cameramen over the Internet and got Lucas Jodogne and Mary Van Kets.

Mr. Tong called restaurants listed in the Yellow Pages for assistance.
One, New Lucky restaurant at Toa Payoh, allowed them to shoot during a profitable Saturday dim sum lunch and even gave them a free 10-course meal.

Another, a Selegie Road kopi tiam, provided extras immediately.
Ms. Ng, an editor at a post-production house, recalls: "We approached a table with lots of old uncles, told them we needed them in our film, and they just jumped right into it and improvised enthusiastically!"
....
(by Carol Leong, From The New Paper, April 19, 1996)



 



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