Slipping through the cracks: film festivals and programmes as sites of pragmatic resistance against political and cultural control in 1990s – 2010s Singapore

• Main Author: Fan, Yuxuan
• Other Authors: Nikki Draper
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Visual arts and music::Film::History; Social sciences::Communication::Cultural studies
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165323
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Film festivals and their collateral programmes are essential components of the film industry, playing an important role in promoting films, connecting filmmakers, and creating a platform for civic discourse. But how do Singapore’s film festivals and programmes navigate the complex interplay between government policies, cultural ambitions, and artistic expression? How do they negotiate spaces for filmmakers and curators to express social, cultural and civic voices while working around state constraints? Advancing the argument that film programmers in Singapore employ strategies of pragmatic resistance, the paper examines how they contest creative boundaries by vacillating between resistance and cooperation, acclimatizing to the technocratic dogma that guides policymaking while advancing civil society space without incriminating themselves. Chronicling Singapore’s key cultural ambitions from the 1990s to 2000s, I establish the role of culture as an expedient resource that is predominantly recognized by the city-state for nation-building and economic value. Subsequently, theorising Pierre Bourdieu and Lynnette Chua, I position specific organisations as sites of pragmatic resistance – an ideal sub-alternate space for opposition while also co-opting censorship. Dissecting interviews with film curators, programmers, scholars and filmmakers, I discuss possible reasons behind this phenomenon: the government’s fervent ambition to establish a “cultural cosmopolitan nexus”; the programmer’s awareness of the boundaries and the festival’s liminal temporal structure.