Bye Bye Tiberias (NC16)
82 minutes
This documentary is screened as part of the Singapore Film Society’s Showcase series and co-presented with The Projector. It follows Palestinian actress and director Hiam Abbass (who was in 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 and 2014’s Exodus: Gods And Kings) as she becomes part of the Palestinian diaspora to pursue her dream of acting.
Decades later, she has returned to her home village with film-maker daughter Lina Soualem. Soualem captures the experiences of her mother as she reflects on the choices that made her leave her mother, grandmother and sisters.
The film made its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. At the BFI London Film Festival, it received the Grierson Award for Best Documentary.
Where: The Projector, 05-00 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road
MRT: Nicoll Highway
When: March 16, 1pm
Admission: $15 standard price, free for SFS members
Info: sfs-tiberias.peatix.com
Frida (NC16)
87 minutes, Prime Video
Peru-born film-maker Carla Gutierrez saw that no biographical work about iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo had told her story from the first-person point of view. Drawing on archives and material from Kahlo’s diary, Gutierrez has Kahlo narrate the story of her own life with the help of voice actors, sound designers, animation and archived interviews.
The film, available on Prime Video, covers the road accident that marked her for the rest of her life, as well as her turbulent relationships with men, such as painter Diego Rivera and Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
The film was selected to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award.
The Color Purple (M18)
141 minutes
Alice Walker’s 1982 novel birthed the 1985 film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg and a stage musical of the same name.
This film, showing at The Projector, is adapted from the stage musical and follows Celie (Fantasia Barrino), a black woman born at the turn of the century, as she grows up. It is a life marked by abusive men, and a group of women who are bonded by suffering.
It also stars Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Halle Bailey and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi.
Brooks, who plays Celie’s friend Sofia was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
