Official Oscar® Submission for Best Foreign Language Film from Singapore: ‘Pop Aye’
A winner of both the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Screenwriting at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the Big Screen Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, ‘Pop Aye’ was a hit with critics and festival audiences alike, and now has been selected by Singapore as the country’s Official Submission to the 90th Academy Awards. Kino Lorber has now released Kirsten Tan’s Award-Winning Pop Aye on DVD with special features including behind-the-scenes footage and trailer.
Pop Aye was released theatrically by Kino Lorber earlier in 2017, with a two-week run at New York’s Film Forum and engagements in key national markets including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, and Seattle. International sales are by Cercamon, a sales company based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates headed by Sébastien Chesneau who is French.
This first feature of Kirsten Tan comes from Singapore but it takes place in Thailand. Immediately after its Sundance screening the reviews were unanimously favorable.
Maggie Lee of Variety said,
Warm yet unsentimental, graced with the lightest touch of surrealism, this opening-night offering from Sundance’s world cinema dramatic competition is a joy for patient viewers, special enough to find a small but appreciated life beyond festivals — a fate heightened by the involvement of executive producer Anthony Chen (director of Cannes Camera d’Or winner ‘Ilo Ilo’)
Sundance 17 Interview with Kirsten Tan, Writer and Director of Pop Aye:
The thrill of interviewing in Sundance is that you see a film, you have an impression and while it is still fresh, you meet the filmmakers without having much time for any research or reflection. As Kirsten, her producer Weijie Lai and I sat down at the Sundance Co-op on Main Street in Park City, I really had little idea of where the interview would take us, somewhat analogous to her film in which an architect, disenchanted with life in general, being put aside as “old” in his own highly successful architectural firm, and in a stale relationship with his wife. By chance he bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok and takes him on a journey across Thailand in search of the farm where they grew up together. The encounters and reflections that ensue surprise and delight and bring us to a new understanding of the precious moments shared and the swift passing of time.
Tell me how this film came to be.
Weijie: “Pop Aye” had lots of traction in development. And lots of sales agents were interested in it since it began with the Berlinale Talents Script Station in 2014.
Kirsten: We met a lot of people there and it was invited from there to TorinoFilmLab where we had a great experience. We were so surprised when it won The Production Award there.
Weijie: We had no idea and I had already left when we heard we won. Kirsten called me and I was standing in line for the plane.
Kirsten: It won US$75,000 which really propelled it forward.
Then it was invited to the Cannes Atelier which gave us even more impetus. We had lots of attention by then.
Weijei: The Singapore Film Commission put in production money from a fund it has for first time filmmakers called The New Talent Feature Grant.
Kirsten: By that time, we were just “riding the beast”. It had taken on a life of its own.
Why do you think it was such a hit?
Kirsten: Well it is a unique story and has a specificity of time and place to it. And I was not just milking the elephant as a story.
I was trying to keep the film authentic and true to life in Thailand with a particular sensibility which makes it unique.
I loved the people he meets along the way. Each one even if playing a very small part, like the Buddhist priest, is so special. The beggar at the gas station was really wonderful and to learn of his full story was so engaging; I felt a compassion.
All the people were people I really met — the beggar, the social outcast, the fortune teller. I lived in Thailand two years and met these people there.
I thought you were Thai since the film was all about Thailand. In fact I wanted to see this film because I have a cousin in Thailand who owns two elephants. They were abused and are now in shelters.
Are you in fact from Singapore?
Yes I lam originally from Singapore. I lived for a year in Korea and in Thailand for two years and in New York for nine years, and I still live there.
Weijei: I am also from Singapore and we were undergrads together.
So that’s how you know each other…
Yes after film school in Thailand, we stayed in touch over the years. I stayed in Singapore where I was producing. She sent me a message when she was doing her NYU Thesis film, a short…writing a message, “how are you” usually means something is up, and it was her short. I worked with her on that fllm. We liked working together and so we went straight from that to this film.
[Editor: Since 2011, Weijie has produced seven films: “Pop Aye”, 2016 “Bronx Lives” (Documentary), 2016 “Distance” (segment producer), 2014 “Granny” (Kirsten’s thesis short which won a student grant from the USA National Board of Review and the Silver Screen Award from the Singapore Film Festival for Best Southeast Asian Short Film and was about an elderly widow who finds an unexpected visitor, a young asylum-seeking girl, in her home during dinner. Inspired by a 2012 event, whereby 40 Burmese Rohingya asylum seekers arrived in the port of Singapore. Also 2013 “That Girl in Pinafore” (co-producer), 2011 “I Have Loved” (Co-director, producer) and 2011/”Homecoming” (co-producer). ]
W: The executive producer, Anthony Chen, is also our friend from film school in Singapore. He is also a director and directed the Cannes Camera d’Or film “Ilo Ilo”. He went on to National Film and Television School and Kirsten went on to NYU Tisch School of the Arts. I also went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia in Singapore before it closed.
Is the short film — your thesis film — related to this film in any way?
K: The two correlate in tone and style though their narratives are different. I like strange things, a bit off kilter. All my shorts have this quality. But, In fact “Sink” was the genesis of the idea for this film. “Sink” is about the relationship of a boy with a sink in the middle of the ocean. When we’re young we give so much more to the moment. With the rising of the ocean the sink went lower and lower into the ocean until it disappeared. It was about the world in the sink until the man was old — time plays a strong part in my films…
When we were filming I watched a group of young boys bathe with an elephant at the beach. They played with such pure joy that I felt such a loss as I watched. I realized I could never go back to that moment. Today, as adults, we hold ourselves back more. The power of that image stayed with me.
You could almost feel it when the man takes the elephant into the water and they begin to play and you see him as a boy playing with him in the sea.
In fact, the way you cut the film, I was not sure it was a flashback, but rather where he was going with the elephant…when you showed the children in the little village watching the television with Popeye on it. I thought he was returning to that village, but when he does find his uncle who still lives there, he discovers the uncle has a new family and they all live in a high rise apartment, that he sold the land …
There is no going back to those moments and so we must cherish them when we have them.
Have you made many shorts?
Yes I’m made six shorts.
So do you think shorts are very important for filmmakers?
Yes, they are very important. They allow the filmmaker to experiment on a low stakes level with different styles and genres before committing to a feature which can take one to three years or more even…I experimented a lot making my shorts. I experiment with time especially. While they have this in common, the stories and content are original in each film.
In fact, the way you cut the film, I was not sure it was a flashback, but rather I thought it was where he was going with the elephant…when you showed the children in the little village watching the television with Popeye on it. I thought he was returning to that village, but when he does finally arrive there, he finds his uncle who still lives there has a new family and they all live in a highrise apartment, that he sold the land …
My shorts began with experimental narratives, elements. It was a narrative but the time frame was experimental.
W: We will send you a link if you are interested.
K: At NYU I had a really good writing professor, Mick Casale and he said that “the very nature of cinema presupposes an audience”. This was and is very important to me when I make movies.
Thank you for quoting him. I can use that for when we teach. We always say that the first thing you must think about when you conceive a film is the audience.
Young filmmakers are often making their “own” film without thinking about an audience. I don’t mean you are pandering to an audience, but when I make movies, I feel I am reaching out an invisible hand to my audience saying, “You are there and you are not alone”.
You are very good depicting human nature. The husband and wife who are bored with each other and in fact, don’t like one another, how he is being sidelined by the younger generation in his own firm… when the film opens the man is a boring indescript sort of man but by the end things have changed even in the relationship with his wife
I like to remind people there are little things in life you have to cherish because time goes by. When he and his wife visit the high-rise that had established his reputation and now is being demolished for a new, larger high-rise, she says that for her, it will never disappear because he built it.
Their moments of happiness can last forever; the trust she had in him, the time he carried her. I am very interested in time in that respect.
You seem very thoughtful and maybe even wise for a young filmmaker.
I feel like I am a very old soul. I think a lot. It is important that filmmakers think a lot about life and existence. And time is very much a part of that. I remember being struck by time in “The Hours” of Michael Cunningham.
You could be living the best time of your life and not know it. When something is good, it could be over in a few hours.
Time is the true final arbiter. Great things go by. So the choice on what your focus is in your life is up to you.
Singapore, at least from what I hear, is very monochromatic, maybe even monotonsou and boring. How did you come to think this way?
I come from a very conservative, traditional Chinese family and I grew up with a very small role to play. I read a lot and and I saw lots of films as I felt trapped, but I realized there was a much bigger world outside of my world.
One last question: What about the gunshot? At the very end I heard a gunshot and wondered about if the elephant had been shot.
The gunshot is a sound motif which you hear first when our hero is a child in his village watching the public showing of Popeye. Someone runs and tells everyone the mother elephant had been shot and she had a baby elephant…It repeats throughout the movie and at the end awakes him to that moment when his life changed.
Thank you. I feel we have covered a lot of ground here. In fact I feel you have answered some questions I myself have been struggling with in my own life.
Yes I also feel we have covered a lot of ground.
I am looking forward to seeing you again and to seeing how this film does with its public and toward seeing your next films.
[Editor postscript: Indiewire asked Sundance filmmakers how the election changed the way they viewed their films and careers. Their answers are as varied as their films.
·Indiewire asked Sundance filmmakers how the election changed the way they viewed their films and careers.
By Annakeara Stinson and Chris O’Falt
·Kirsten had this response:
Kirsten Tan, “Pop Aye:” It definitely affected my view of filmmaking. I was just thinking the other day that if I were to write a film today, it would likely be a little more politicized, somewhat more urgent, as an instinctual reaction to the rising tide of right wing populism and its deplorable need to drown out minority voices.
Sundance 2017 — World Cinema Dramatic Competition
RT: 98min
WORLD PREMIERE
Singapore
Writer/Director: Kirsten Tan
Producer: Anthony Chen, Weijie Lai
Starring: Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Penpak Sirikul, Bong
Sales Contact: Cercamon
Sebastien Chesneau — sebastien [at] cercamon.biz
Synopsis: On a chance encounter, a disenchanted architect bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. Excited, he takes his elephant on a journey across Thailand in search of the farm where they grew up together.
Kino Lorber Releases Kirsten Tan’s Award-Winning Pop Aye,
Singapore’s Official Submission to the 90th Academy Awards
Now Available on DVD with Special Features including Behind-the-Scenes Footage and Trailer
“Unforgettable.” — Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
“A joy.” — Maggie Lee, Variety
“A quietly eloquent, crowd-pleasing film.” — Fionnuala Halligan, Screen Daily
New York, NY — October 4, 2017 — Kino Lorber is proud to announce that Kirsten Tan’s award-winning Pop Aye is now available on DVD.
Now available on DVD with a SRP of $19.95, Pop Aye includes special features such as behind-the-scenes footage and the trailer.
Pop Aye is a heartwarming tale of a man and his elephant. A successful Bangkok architect in the midst of a midlife crisis is reunited with an elephant he knew growing up. The two embark on a road trip to the man’s childhood home in the idyllic Thai countryside. Along the way, they meet a colorful cast of characters that includes a pair of nonplussed local police officers, a forlorn transgender sex worker, and a mysteriously wise drifter. As the encounters mount and the bond between man and elephant deepens, filmmaker Kirsten Tan weaves a strikingly universal tale in this feature debut that won prizes (and hearts) at the Sundance and Rotterdam Film Festivals.
