Sex.Violence.FamilyValues was banned in our (stuffy) little red dot when it first came out, but local director Ken Kwek isn’t bowing to pressure. His new feature, Unlucky Plaza, made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Friday, 12 September – and it’s also been picked up by Media Luna, an independent film distributor, for world sales rights.
TIFF’s only made-in-Singapore film is a suspense-laden thriller loosely based on a true story, and showcases some of our biggest homegrown talents. Adrian Pang plays Sky, an arrogant motivational speaker who hopes to pay off a crushing debt to the Chinese mafia by liquidating an apartment his wife Michelle (Judee Tan) owns. Instead, the unhappily wedded Michelle rents out half the family apartment to Onassis (Epy Quizon), a struggling Filipino and single father, who turns on the family and takes them hostage.
The 122-minute film’s raw, gritty exploration of society’s dark underbelly reflects Kwek’s forte. His previous film was banned (and later given an R21 rating after a few cuts) because of its satirical take on the lives of seemingly ordinary Singaporeans. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Kwek shared that he felt embarrassed in being “part of a society that flagellates itself with such righteous abandon”. This deep-seated tension led him to craft a story on “a hapless immigrant fighting for a stake in his adopted country”.
Getting a spot on the TIFF circuit also gave the controversial film director a sense of freedom as an artist. “There’s every chance the film will not be screened in my own country,” Kwek said in the same interview. “[This] makes the screenings in Toronto even more special and encouraging.”
We hope he will be proved otherwise.
Photos: TIFF.net