The Cup
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Country/Region:
Singapore
Release Year: 2020
Release Year: 2020
Story:
In a surreal tableau, a man with a brewing machine for a head, discontent with the bland taste of the brew from his own body, attempts to do what he can to improve its flavour. The Cup is a meditation on being in the world, upon the flattening out of life as we know and image it during the coronavirus pandemic. It was shot and produced while the filmmakers were confined to their home during the lockdown period in Singapore.
In a surreal tableau, a man with a brewing machine for a head, discontent with the bland taste of the brew from his own body, attempts to do what he can to improve its flavour. The Cup is a meditation on being in the world, upon the flattening out of life as we know and image it during the coronavirus pandemic. It was shot and produced while the filmmakers were confined to their home during the lockdown period in Singapore.
Casts & Crews:
Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen
Directors
Runtime:
17
minutes
Subtitles:
English, Chinese
Festivals & Awards:
31st Singapore International Film Festival, 2020, Singapore 5th International Film Festival & Awards Macao, 2020, Macao Asian Film Archive - Singapore Shorts, 2021, Singapore
31st Singapore International Film Festival, 2020, Singapore 5th International Film Festival & Awards Macao, 2020, Macao Asian Film Archive - Singapore Shorts, 2021, Singapore
Tags:
#Singapore, #Lockdown, #Teochew
Director‘s Statement:
The Cup is a meditation on being in the world, upon the flattening out of life as we know and image it during the pandemic. It was shot and produced in our home during the lockdown period in Singapore, and an early version was first presented as part of a group exhibition 'flat' at Sullivan+Strumpf Gallery (Singapore).
The pandemic and its effects, in some sense, have profoundly altered our envisioning of being in the world. Perhaps due to the large intersection of our collective lived experience in this period around the globe. While the restrictions in daily life protect oneself as well as the general public from the spread of the pandemic, they seem to have resulted in an observably diminished joy of life for many. Bringing to surface a dissatisfaction with simply being, in this more isolated, restricted way.
The film, as a picture of and from the flattening out of life during the pandemic, hopes to explore the notion that perhaps what felt missing during the lockdown - where satisfaction and a ‘more joyous life’ lie in - was the freedoms to individually curate and have the choice of risking our lives how we see fit, in various engagements, something we had in life before the pandemic.
Perhaps we felt such a joy of life when death, its elusion and risking it was in a way of our choice, in which arises the inexplicable tangle of the living we want, and how we live.
The pandemic and its effects, in some sense, have profoundly altered our envisioning of being in the world. Perhaps due to the large intersection of our collective lived experience in this period around the globe. While the restrictions in daily life protect oneself as well as the general public from the spread of the pandemic, they seem to have resulted in an observably diminished joy of life for many. Bringing to surface a dissatisfaction with simply being, in this more isolated, restricted way.
The film, as a picture of and from the flattening out of life during the pandemic, hopes to explore the notion that perhaps what felt missing during the lockdown - where satisfaction and a ‘more joyous life’ lie in - was the freedoms to individually curate and have the choice of risking our lives how we see fit, in various engagements, something we had in life before the pandemic.
Perhaps we felt such a joy of life when death, its elusion and risking it was in a way of our choice, in which arises the inexplicable tangle of the living we want, and how we live.
Casts & Crews
Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen
Director
