Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

So there I am, back in NYC, comatose from jet lag when I get a phone call at 5.30 am in the morning… I panic. At this hour, what kind of phone call can bring good news? But it’s Alice Lim, who plays ‘Ma’ in Singapore Dreaming… she’s saying something in Mandarin, but my jet-lag addled brain and condemned Mandarin can’t entirely parse it.

Then it seeps in… She’s saying congratulations. Barely 16 hours after I’d left Japan, I’m being told that Singapore Dreaming just became the first ever Singapore film to win the Best Asian/Middle Eastern Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
As I’d already flown off, the Festival asked if we had anyone in Tokyo who could represent us at the awards ceremony. As it turns out, Alice’s daughter Leng Yeng is stationed there… perfect! (That’s her above, holding our award. Yen and I think she looks so glamorous, she should represent us at every awards ceremony…)

We’re still reeling from the news. We can’t believe our little film had a hope of winning over all the other tua liap directors! (SGD was competing in the Winds of Asia-Middle East category, which included films like ‘Exodus’ by Hong Kong director Pang Ho Cheung and starring Simon Yam; ‘Breath’ by South Korean auteur Kim Ki Duk; ‘The Wall Passer’ by Taiwan’s Hung Hung; ‘Mad Detective’ by Hong Kong’s Johnny To; ‘Cut and Paste’ by Egypt’s Hala Khalil; and ‘A Few Days Later’ by Iranian superstar Niki Karimi. If we even suspected we had a chance, I’d definitely have hung around for the end of the Fest…

Thank you, Tokyo jury! Thank you, TIFF! Thank you, audiences! Thank you, investors, actors, crew, distributors, sales agent and everyone who helped make our dream come true!

Now we shall go eat sushi in celebration…

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