Call for Papers: Special Issue of Asian Cinema on Singapore Cinema

In the last twenty years or so, Singapore cinema has grown to make its presence felt across many international film festivals. This recent revival may be traced to 1995, when director Eric Khoo placed Singapore cinema on the world map with his critically acclaimed feature, Mee Pok Man. Ever since, there has been a steady increase in the number of Singapore directors who have contributed to the growing body of productions globally. Some of these directors include Anthony Chen, Boo Junking, Daniel Hui, Eva Tang, Jack Neo, K. Rajagopal, Ken Kwek, Kelvin Tong, Kirsten Tan, Royston Tan, Sun Koh, and Tan Pin Pin, just to name a few. Yet new and aspiring directors are in the line-up, gradually making their voices heard. For a tiny city-state of about 5.7 million people, the rise of numerous directors, including a handful of whom have received nominations and awards from FIPRESCI and in prestigious festivals such as the Cannes International Film Festival and the Taipei Golden Horse Awards Film Festival just within two decades, makes the study of Singapore cinema timely and compelling. Is it now possible to speak of a Singapore New Wave?

The guest editors of the special issue of Asian Cinema would like to extend an invitation to scholars for contributing new research which explores Singapore cinema. With a particular focus on post-1995 productions, we are interested in essays dealing with topics related but not limited to the following:

• cultural and linguistic diversity
• Singapore cinema and the Sinophone
• gender and sexuality
• auteur cinema
• censorship
• Singapore cinema and film festivals (including Singapore International Film Festival)

Please send (1) your abstract of 300 words along with (2) your bio of 80 words to both guest editors How Wee Ng (hn15@soas.ac.uk ) and Yin C. Chuang (laalaapiano@ntnu.edu.tw) by 30 November, 2016.

Selected abstracts will be invited to submit full manuscripts by 30 Jun 2017 for consideration of publication in the special issue in 2018/2019.

Articles should be between 6,000 – 8,000 words in length. Please note that articles should be original and not be under consideration by any other publication.