No need for cuts this time

The upcoming Singapore International Film Festival may showcase movies from around the world, but local film-makers are vying for the spotlight too. JILL LIM (jilllim@sph.com.sg) susses out what three of them have to offer

DIRECTOR Sam Loh is back for the Singapore International Film Festival (Siff) - but this time, there's no controversy.

None that he expects, anyway.

Last year, his first feature film, Outsiders, was withdrawn from the festival at the last minute because of cuts that the Board of Film Censors (BFC) wanted made.

The film had a necrophilia and serial killer storyline and would have been rated R(A) even after the cuts.

Siff's policy is not to screen censored films.

But this year, Sam is on safer ground.

His short film, Malice, is about two dissatisfied couples whose lives get entangled.

The 22-minute piece stars Lim Kay Tong and Amy Cheng as a bored married couple, and Timothy Nga and Agnes Wong as an engaged couple.

Amy and Timothy's characters have an affair.

Made for 'a few thousand dollars' and shot over four days last November, Malice is rated a relatively safe PG.

But he is not giving up on Outsiders - or edgy films.

Said Sam, who has been in the business for 12 years and a freelance director for the past six: 'Of course, I'd like to see Outsiders screened in a cinema.

'I haven't (offered) it to a distributor yet. Perhaps after I complete my second film (which he is now conceptualising), I may package them together like a doublebill.'

He has directed three seasons of Arts Central's The Ways Of The Matriarch and will do the fourth season next month. He has also directed episodes for Arts Central's From Stage To Screen series, Channel i's Singapore Line is overdrawn Shakes series and two Kids Central programmes.

As for the cuts required by BFC for the Outsiders, which showed the protagonist having sex with his dead victims, Sam said: 'Cutting those scenes would remove the motivation for the killings. He gets sexually aroused after he kills them. That's why he kills.

'The scenes are not really graphic. You can see him doing it, but from far. They mainly show his expression.

'But that's the main problem for me. Without the scenes, it seems as if he's just killing senselessly.'

He also said that he had been told about the required cuts a week before the scheduled screening date, which wasn't enough time for him to re-edit the film.

'I thought, 'Move on, do other films.' But if it's for general release, I might try to see how I can re-edit it.'

Outsiders, which cost about $50,000 to make, had been self-funded.

Added the mild-mannered Sam, who is married with a daughter, Sharlize, 4: 'The authorities shouldn't decide the fate of films for audiences.

'We need to grow in terms of our thinking and viewing habits.

'They cannot always protect us.

'We should look at other things than just Jack Neo films.

'Movies that are somewhere between indie and commercial, like Lost in Translation or American Beauty, is a good direction for Singapore.'