Editor-in-chief Goh Cheng Hao examines the programmes Out of Nowhere and Can You Hear Me? from the incoming SYFF, tracing the resonances within its varied narratives. If these films represent our current milieu, what concerns or anxieties might they reflect?

Staff Writer Kyle Ashley Pillai explores Jacques Tati’s arthouse classic PlayTime (1967), examining his visions of the future and how its celebration of the human spirit amidst modern chaos still resonates with contemporary urban life 50 years later.

Editor-in-Chief Venesya Mayvelie Kosasi considers how Pluribus (2025-) serves as an allegory for colonialism, revealing that the real horror of the show is rooted in the inequalities and marginalization already transpiring in real life. And even beyond that, through its nuances, that the show challenges our conception of what it means to be human–who are we, if we must rethink reality?

Staff Writer Yu Ke Dong surveys all four Singapore Panorama Shorts Programmes at the 36th SGIFF: with his finger on the pulse of contemporary filmmaking, what’s the prognosis for local programming and cinema?

Staff Writer Adrian Ho reflects on the harsh depiction of contemporary life in Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s Human Resource (2025), relating the film’s endless toil and alienation to our own realities.

Staff Writer Mohamed Shafiullah examines what he terms as ‘get-hyped’ films in Kollywood, looking beyond the tropes that dominate these films and delving into its ties to the politics of the region–as well as the consequences of having Tamil cinema and Tamil politics so strongly intertwined.

Staff Writer Isabel Ng Cardoso examines the patchwork of narratives that Alice Winocour weaves in Couture (2025), ruminating on whether the film and its title is an accurate reflection of the definition—or simply an echo of it.

Editor-in-chief Goh Cheng Hao reflects on Natalie Sin’s The 4PLY Clandestine System, premiering at the 36th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), amid our culture of the viral online persona, representation, and tissue paper.

Staff Writer Mohamed Shafiullah reconsiders the elements that made Oz Perkins’ Longlegs (2024) such an effective thriller while anticipating his new film Keeper (2025).

Leading up to the Singapore premiere of the 4K Restoration of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001), staff writer Adrian Ho exorcises the concerns of the director’s preternatural filmography: the malaise of loneliness, and the banality of violence at the heart of modern technology.

Staff Writer Isabel Ng Cardoso ponders the futility of putting someone on a false pedestal in her exploration of how romantic idealisation is utilised or denounced in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016) and Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer (2009).

Staff Writer Yu Ke Dong ruminates on film-as-archeology and the ways we engage with, reimagine, and supplement histories — through the eye of the camera, and the experience of the body.

In his thoughtful review of Jumana Manna’s documentary Foragers (2022), Programmer Umar Al Khair examines Palestinian resistance and encourages readers to question what it means to inhibit the positions we occupy.

Editor-in-chief Goh Cheng Hao dwells on the physicality of film and the intimacy of filmmaking in this piece examining Robert Beaver’s From the Notebook Of….(1971/1988) and filmmaker-artist duo Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen’s expanded cinema performance We Are Toast.

As Emerald Fennell threatens the world with her impending Wuthering Heights (2026) rework, editor-in-chief Venesya Ko offers up some actually watchable literary adaptations to watch as alternatives.

Guest Writer Jeongrak Son unravels the 317 minutes of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Happy Hour (2015).

Was it just for the views or does Tetris (2023) invite a search for deeper meaning? Guest Writer Abhijith shares his take.

Staff Writer Angelica Ng offers a different perspective of the idyllicism in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).

Guest writer Khushi Pai dissects the lesbian film that quickly garnered a cult following Bottoms (2023), and what makes it more than just a casual high school rom-com.

Guest Writer Adrian Ho dives deeper into Steven Soderbergh’s career, with a focus on Presence (2025) and Black Bag (2025), which were both released this year.