SINGAPORE, Jan 29 — One of Singapore’s foremost theatre and film directors, Glen Goei, is going to Berlin. His latest film project, Pontianak, has been selected to be one of the 10 films to be part of the Berlinale Talent Project Market (TPM), a collaboration between Berlinale Talents and Berlinale Co-Production Market. TPM is held as part of the Berlinale, or Berlin International Film Festival, which runs from Feb 5 to 12 this year and offers all 10 of the selected participants inside knowledge and contacts necessary to bring them closer to making and completing their films.

Goei, along with producer Tan Bee Thiam, will be in Berlin to participate in a two-day prep programme to gain insight and guidance from industry experts about the international film market before presenting their film proposals to experienced co-producers and financiers who are attending the Berlinale Co-Production Market. In addition, they will compete against the other nine projects for two monetary prizes, the VFF Highlight Pitch Award, where the winners get 10,000 euros and their projects will be pitched publicly at the Berlinale Co-Production Market; and the ARTE International Award, where the winner gets 6,000 euros.

This is yet another step towards international movie making for Goei, the theatre stalwart whose first feature film, Forever Fever, became the first Singapore film to land a worldwide commercial release back in 1998. The film was distributed in America and the United Kingdom by Miramax, which then signed him on an exclusive three-picture deal. His second film, 2009’s The Blue Mansion, premiered at the Busan International Film Festival.

With Pontianak, Goei intends to pay homage to the popular Malay horror films produced by the Shaw and Cathay studios in Singapore back in the 1950s, a time when the country was also known as “the Hollywood of Southeast Asia”. These horror films, which were reflective of post-war fears and political upheavals were box office hits and ensured the position of the Singapore studios.

The idea for Pontianak — the brainchild of Goei, his producer Tan, award-winning cinematographer Christopher Doyle and Malaysian writer-actor Gavin Yap — came about over dinner, when Doyle was in Singapore to shoot a dance film for Goei. Everyone wanted to do another project together and Pontianak, which is at the development stage, was born. Goei hopes to raise a budget of US$2 million (RM7.2 million) for the film. He is currently looking for collaborators as well as financing and is aiming go into production end of 2015 or early 2016.

The Berlinale is seen as one of the world’s top and largest film festivals and welcomes over 8,400 producers, buyers, sales agents, distributors, exhibitors and financiers to the first major film market of the year. — TODAY