The filmmaker behind Moveable Feast returns with the mouth-watering Gourmet Baby, one of the 15^th Singapore International Film Festival 2002 highlights. Interview by Gerrie Lim.

If you ask Sandi Tan what it means to be a "Singapore filmmaker," you’ll probably see her roll her eyes at the obvious oxymoron.

"My long term career goal is to have a career," she says, in a manner atypical of most Singapore women (who’d rather, let’s face it, prefer to be socialites or stockbrokers). Since leaving Singapore last year with her screenwriting partner and husband, John Powers, the executive editor and media columnist for the LA Weekly, Tan has been living in Los Angeles -- doing the rounds of the Hollywood studios and promoting her current film Gourmet Baby at various film festivals, with no plans to return to Singapore anytime soon (with the exception of attending the upcoming 15^th Singapore International Film Festival in April, where the film will be shown).

At present, the 14-minute short film has just played at the Women In Cinema Film Festival in Seattle (alongside short films by Faye Dunaway and Sarah Polley) and also competed at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France. And all this after having had its world premiere last year at the 39^th New York Film Festival -- an appropriate event for Tan, a former film critic for The Straits Times who’d then left the paper to study in New York, graduating with a Master’s degree in Film from Columbia University. (The New York world premiere represented a triumph for her, since the film had earlier failed to find funding from the Singapore Film Commission. Which begs the pointed question: Is she yet another émigré prophet, proverbially not without honour except in her own country?)

In 1996, the Singapore International Film Festival premiered Moveable Feast, a 14-minute short film (co-directed with Jasmine Ng and Kelvin Tong, from a script by Kelvin Tong) about the gastronomic delights of food and eating rituals in Singapore. With Gourmet Baby, Tan returns to the subject but with a new edge, thanks in part to a stellar performance from veteran lead actor Lim Kay Tong, who plays an "openly misanthropic" gourmand neurotically fixated on a young girl.

"Sandi created a comfort zone for us," Lim recalls, "which allowed for a natural expression of character -- not always easy to achieve on-camera given the normal hurly-burly of most productions. This was possible because she knew what she wanted from the film, cast and crew. Also, it helped that she can write well. Most of the work had thus been done for us actors." What finer praise can there be for a director?

In her unique vision, underscored by Gourmet Baby, lies the promise of great things ahead for a Singapore writer/director gone abroad -- to test the parameters of her talent; steely-eyed and undaunted in her ambition to transcend the constricting ways of her native land, and blessed with -- as the following interview shows -- strong opinions to boot.

Lim Kay Tong (left) and Carla Dunareanu in Gourmet Baby.

To what extent is your new film Gourmet Baby an extension of the the themes you first explored five years ago, in your first short film Moveable Feast?

It's nothing like Moveable Feast. And it's not about food -- it's about taste. It's about a sensitive little girl who becomes the favored dining companion of a lonely, sexually repressed uncle, who lives for good food.

What actually inspired you to make Gourmet Baby?

I've always got a hundred ideas floating around for films, and this was the one that struck me as being possible to make at the time, back in June 2001. At that point in time, I was hanging around a lot of restaurant-critic types and a fine-restaurant boom was starting up in Singapore, so I thought of gourmet food as an apt metaphor for the film. Of course, I also saw it as a story about Singapore -- a Prospero wanting to create perfection, and the sadness and cruelty of it all. It's about different kinds of aspirations. Also, I managed to convince Lim Kay Tong to do it -- and he was key. What a terrific performance! Everyone who's seen it has gone "Wow!" Ditto the generosity of John Sharpley, who created a brilliant original score, and my cinematographer Lucas Jodogne, who’d also shot Moveable Feast and The Scratch for me. It was a dream team. I couldn't have asked for more. Everyone, from me to the grips, we were sad when we wrapped the final scene. We were very lucky. However, it ended up costing $25,000 to make and so, I’m now broke!

Do you see yourself as a social commentator on things Singaporean?

Well, I always think movies should have something to say as well as being entertaining. Otherwise, you should be making TV commercials or variety shows. Having something to say is different from "message movies." I hate "message movies." They're preachy and they stink.

So why then the subject of food?

Food is just a conduit because it's the only freedom in Singapore. It's something that people feel free to discuss, dissect and indulge in. People in Singapore don't talk about politics or literature or happiness. They talk about food. It's a social connector but, in this case, in Gourmet Baby, it can also be the breaker of connections. I think the Women in Cinema Film Festival's catalog said it real well: it's about the appetite for various kinds of perfection, and the impossibility or immorality of realizing such ideals.

What kind of reception have you received overseas? How was Gourmet Baby received when it premiered at the New York Film Festival?

Amazingly good reception. It was one of 15 or 16 shorts selected for the New York Film Festival, which also hosted the US premieres of acclaimed new films like The Royal Tenenbaums and Mulholland Drive, so it was really good company. I didn't make it to the festival because it was so close following Sept 11, but I had a message read for me to the audience at both screenings -- it was the first short to show at the festival -- and I was told people were moved. And they cheered and applauded for the film for a long time. I wish I could have been there, had I the guts to get on the plane!

Prior to that, you had shown Moveable Feast in New York earlier, at the New York Film/Video Council's 1997 "International Shortfest" at the Museum of Modern Art. It also played at the Festival du Court Metrage de Clermont-Ferrand, in France, and also at the 1997 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan. Have these been useful for your career?

Yes, in the sense that I’ve been invited to take meetings with people at various places, like Fox Searchlight’s talent scout division Searchlab, so a lot of good has so far come out of it. I wasn't personally at any of those Moveable Feast screenings. My co-directors went -- Jasmine Ng went to New York and Kelvin Tong went to Clermont-Ferrand. Both were great because we got a lot of TV sales from them and recouped our cost. We were shown on SBS-TV across Australia and the Arte channel across Europe. I’m hoping that the same should happen for Gourmet Baby at Clermont-Ferrand's film market. I'm still negotiating with Hypnotic Films -- owned by Vivendi Universal -- who are interested in acquiring it, but we have to iron out certain legalities first.

Silly as it sounds, do you have hopes at all for a real film industry in Singapore someday?

No. It’s impossible. I first mooted the idea as an intern writing for The Sunday Times back in 1991. I was 18 at the time. I was innocent, and I didn't know what I was talking about. Now I know. Even if you don't consider the small and dwindling creative talent pool, the market is just too small to sustain interesting films in Singapore. Also, the costs are too high. When you only have one or two sound guys or gaffers in the country that people want to work with, they can ask for high prices. Plus, you have to wait till they are free to work!

You wrote and directed "The Scratch," an episode of the six-part TV series Drive, produced by Eric Khoo's Zhao Wei Films and commissioned by TCS. In retrospect, what was that experience like for you?

Terrible, and I don't want to talk about it. I'm still embarrassed by that. I don't think the executives realised it was supposed to be a black comedy, so we were battling on the issue of tone throughout, and it showed. What a mess. But you learn -- not to work with them again.

There are two aspects of your "early" film career that I'm still not sure about. Firstly, you co-directed a short film called I Never Told You The Truth, correct?

Wow! You have been doing your homework. JEE-SUS! Um, yes, that was my first foray into film. It was made with a film class at The Substation in 1991. It was a trifle, a stunt film, recreating a Burmese village cafe on someone's farm in Sembawang. The dialogue is entirely in Burmese! It was pretty not-good -- but it did make the short list at the Singapore International Film Festival's Short Film Awards, and that was what really sparked off my interest in making movies. Before that, I only did theatre and exercises on video. I owe everything to the Singapore International Film Festival. Seriously.

Secondly, there's an unseen film called Shirkers which, as I recall, was neither edited nor finished due to some strife between you and your then-partners. Can you clarify?

Yes, the great lost classic, Shirkers, made in 1992! I was only 18 when I wrote it, and I also played the lead. It was raw and unpolished, but it had that something, you know. It had ideas and energy. It was about the impossibility of a road movie in tiny small-town Singapore.

It was a dream-logic film, a film about teen angst and murder. There were so many scenes, so many set pieces, all shot, in so many locations that no longer exist -- from Sembawang backroads to the Bukit Timah quarry. We shot it in over 60 days, including getting SBS to rent us a bus and a driver for free for a few days when we shot a series of scenes on a double decker. When I saw Ghost World last year, I almost fainted -- it captured a lot of the dreamy-angry teen mood and the caustic surrealism that the film was trying to capture. It was the closest thing I've seen to my actual film!

So many people worked on Shirkers, and all for free. Somehow the "director" Georges Cardona, who had taught a film class at The Substation, still found the gall to vanish with the footage, after it was all done. The primary creative people involved were all studying abroad when it happened -- I was in England, Jasmine Ng and Sophie Siddique were in the U.S -- so we couldn't pursue the matter as closely as we should have. Also, we were all under 21 and didn't have any legal recourse. When we returned to Singapore, he was nowhere to be found. The three of us still talk about it a lot. We're going to get it back someday.

I understand that you and your husband John have written a script together called Voodoo Kiss, which is now in development at Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation. Pressman's website calls it "a supernatural thriller about a successful female anthropologist who loses her husband when he falls from a bridge during a trip to Haiti . . . " Is that still happening?

Well, it's still in Pressman’s slate, but I guess nothing happens till it happens, right? We sold it at a bad time -- in 1999 when a lot of supernatural stories with female leads were being made, like What Lies Beneath, Bless The Child and The Others. So Kim Basinger was interested in our script but she was already making one (Bless The Child), and Madonna was interested but she couldn't get (French director) Leos Carax -- whom she wanted -- to commit on it. Carax said it reminded him of I Walk With A Zombie, which is completely untrue. And so it goes.

By leaving Singapore to work in the United States, you've ostensibly joined the ranks of those who have chosen not to contribute their talents to the arts in Singapore. There is, ironically, a great deal of interest in this now -- with their sudden, desperate carping over the need for "creativity," the decision makers in the government now seem forced to take notice of the "brain drain" they've been fuelling. What would you say to those who feel that local talent should be nurtured in more constructive ways?

I don't wish to contribute to this argument against the likes of me. Besides, I'm not averse to doing projects in Singapore if the right ones pop up. The people who made Gourmet Baby with me -- I'll work with all of them again at the drop of a hat.

What is your feeling now about the issue of censorship here, not just with films but even with story ideas? Is it a real hindrance or is it merely imagined?

It's not merely imagined. The fact that censorship exists means that your imagination is not allowed to roam free, which is what it should be doing when you're thinking up ideas and stories. The fact that you can't think of certain things because it's taboo is very constricting. And I don't mean the usual big taboos of sex and politics. I mean things like if you happen to think of a great story involving cops in Singapore, then you start worrying about whether or not you can make it because the police force may not like a certain aspect of it and may not want your characters to wear their uniform. If you're thinking about a satire involving a TV station or newspaper, you can't do it, because the ones here will immediately suppose it's a commentary about them. And so what if it is???!!! The fair-use clause doesn't seem to apply. You still end up worrying that someone will sue you to the ground for some tiny infraction you weren't even aware of. That is the ultimate, stifling nightmare. That is why instead of NYPD Blue and Saturday Night Live, you have VR Man and The Big Buffet.

For the record, what exactly happened with the Singapore Film Commission, who apparently denied you funding for Gourmet Baby?

The funding issue with the Singapore Film Commission was the last straw. When I was going to make my short film, I applied for their general $5K grant, which is given to over 40 films a year, and they took over two months mulling over my application -- which is a very long time for a short film. Because they needed your detailed budget and other information, before they give you money. In practicality, if you already have done so much work as to have a detailed budget for your short, you're pretty much ready to shoot, like, immediately. And not wait two or three months -- for them to decide whether or not you deserve their money!

That was the last straw, because it made me realise that filmmaking in Singapore will always be tied up in bureaucratic bungling. My application sat on their desk for over two months and wasn't looked at because they couldn't get their panel of "experts" to set up a meeting for things like this, even for small projects and sums. As a result, they have a lost a customer. When my film goes around the world, their name will not be on it.

What kind of filmmaking do you expect you'll evolve your style into — features or documentaries? And would you like to continue to make more short films?

No more short films, if I can help it, because I have long ones I'm dying to get made. Gourmet Baby was done just to remind people I can write and direct, and hopefully it will secure me bigger gigs. People here (in Hollywood) don't consider you for anything till you have work to prove it. Now, features and documentaries, definitely. I've been plowing away at a couple of feature scripts I hope to make in the next year or two.

Can you comment on any other current or future film projects of yours?

Right now, I've got several screenplays that I've written, and I'm working on those two I just mentioned -- one is a biopic and the other is a comedy, which I'm very excited about and I hope to direct myself. I'll be talking about them with film companies here once I'm ready. Movies are all about the script, and I want to make sure they're absolutely fine before I get them out there. And then with scripts, so much of it is about timing. One year, gender-bending comedies are in and the next year, the flavor of the month is teen horror. It becomes not just about writing well, but pitching it well at the right time. In Singapore, any old thing can get made if you talk to some guy with $800,000 about it but, unfortunately, that's not the case in Hollywood.

What are your current interests in film? Whose films interest or inspire you these days? What elements of film language are you currently engaged by?

I've always been really inspired by the films of Agnes Varda, David Lynch, David Cronenberg and the late Hal Ashby, though it doesn't follow that I want to make films like theirs. They just excite me because they explore all kinds of different possibilities. Right now, I find myself excited about a bunch of young filmmakers -- Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne and Wes Anderson -- because they're really smart and really playful at the same time. They're from an entirely media-saturated generation and I relate to that because I am too. I also love old guys like Shohei Imamura -- God, he's

perverse! Generally, I love people who can rivet you with unlikely stories -- like Being John Malkovich -- and who get me excited, to the point where I want to run out and make a movie right now!!!


Note: The above was published in BigO #195 (March 2002).
Click here to order a copy of the issue (S$4.80). Overseas readers can email singbigo@singnet.com.sg for rates.