SINGAPORE: New film makes fun of Singapore censors

Now the wait is on to see if sideswipe at censors will be censored

The Straits Times
Sunday, March 7, 2004
By Wong Kim Hoh

Call it shear audacity.
Last year, Singapore's film censors 'traumatised' filmmaker Royston Tan by demanding 27 cuts before giving his film, 15, an R(A) rating.
The best therapy, he decided, was to confront his tormentors head on.
So he made Cut, a 12-minute musical that satirises censorship in Singapore, and lampoons Ms Amy Chua, director of media content at the Media Development Authority (MDA).
'I could cry about it or I could laugh about it. I decided to do the latter,' said Tan, 27, who pumped $15,000 of his own savings into Cut and roped in actor-director-playwright Jonathan Lim to help him with the script and music.
Scheduled to premiere at next month's Singapore International Film Festival, the spoof features a cast of 180 including the who's who of Singapore's creative community such as director Eric Khoo, actress Beatrice Chia and fashion photographer Geoff Ang. All worked for free.
Jonathan Lim, 29, plays a rabid movie fan who harasses Ms Chua (played by actress Neo Swee Lin) in a supermarket by recounting, with academic precision, all the deletions she has ordered on movies in Singapore.
In one scene, Lim's character tells Ms Chua he worships her style of censorship. 'Highly original, so daring, sometimes too Wong Kar Wai.' Wong Kar Wai is the internationally acclaimed Hong Kong director of films such as Happy Together and In The Mood For Love.
The short film ends with a campy song-and-dance sequence in a carpark where the cast belts out its own version of hits such as Wham's Last Christmas and Abba's Thank You For The Music. The lyrics, of course, have been doctored to send up censorship in this country.
Sung to the tune of We Are Singapore is this number: This one is PGThat one is GThis one is R(A) You cannot seeYou're only old enoughAfter armyThis is SingaporeCensorship is free'
Neo, 40, said she took on the film with no hesitation because it was fun and made a statement about censorship. 'I believe censorship kills creativity. If we're really after a creative society, and a renaissance city, we have to loosen up,' she said.
Tan and Lim took a month to research and put the project together.
So, will Cut fall foul of the censors?
Tan said: 'The film was done in the spirit of fun so no one should take offence. I certainly hope the Board of Film Censors and Amy Chua would have a sense of humour.'
He said the prestigious Cannes film festival is considering screening it and more than 16 international film festivals have already pre-booked the movie.
Lim added: 'I don't think Amy Chua will be pleased. But no one who is in a position of authority should be free from scrutiny or satire.'
The Singapore festival, which hopes to screen it next month, submitted Cut to the Board of Film Censors for a rating about three weeks ago. The BFC hasn't yet indicated if it will be passed, passed with deletions or banned.
When contacted, an MDA spokesman said more than 300 films have been submitted for the festival and they were still being assessed.
'This is in addition to the many films the Board of Film Censors receives from the industry and public for classification,' she added.
There was also no response from Ms Chua as to whether she objected to being satirised.