NORTH SOUTH

Reworking recently rediscovered 15-year-old footage, NORTH SOUTH is a personal and political allegory of freedom and repression in Singapore. It draws an analogy between bipolar-altered reality to life in a prosperous fascist regime (the bridge it was filmed on was a then newly-constructed link between the state university and an army officer camp). NORTH SOUTH was an experiment in the expressiveness of form and rejection of over-determined Hollywood / social realist narrative taught in Singapore. Central to its structure and intent was the foregrounding of typically background elements (montage and music) to explore their expressive potential, as well as the audience’s projection of meaning and significance. A dub of the original tape was one of the few possessions Stephen had with him when he fled Singapore, and it got lost and damaged over the years of living in exile. Remastered and re-edited in 20Reworking recently rediscovered 15-year-old footage, NORTH SOUTH is a personal and political allegory of freedom and repression in Singapore. It draws an analogy between bipolar-altered reality to life in a prosperous fascist regime (the bridge it was filmed on was a then newly-constructed link between the state university and an army officer camp). NORTH SOUTH was an experiment in the expressiveness of form and rejection of over-determined Hollywood / social realist narrative taught in Singapore. Central to its structure and intent was the foregrounding of typically background elements (montage and music) to explore their expressive potential, as well as the audience’s projection of meaning and significance. A dub of the original tape was one of the few possessions Stephen had with him when he fled Singapore, and it got lost and damaged over the years of living in exile. Remastered and re-edited in 2013 upon discovery of the lost tape, NORTH SOUTH utilizes footage originally shot on S-VHS in 1998, and has music that has been reframed and rerecorded for its 2013 incarnation. 13 upon discovery of the lost tape, NORTH SOUTH utilizes footage originally shot on S-VHS in 1998, and has music that has been reframed and rerecorded for its 2013 incarnation.