City of Small Blessings (2024)

This screening will be followed by a Q&A session with filmmaker Wong Chen-Hsi and writer Simon Tay City of Small Blessings (2024) Directed by Wong Chen-Hsi Produced by Akanga Film Asia, MM2, Analog Robot, Purple Tree Pictures Cast: Victor Banerjee, Noorlinah Mohamed, Brendon Fernandez Language: English with subtitles Runtime: 113 min Rating: PG13 Synopsis City of Small Blessings, which premiered at the 2024 Singapore International Film Festival, is an adaptation of Simon Tay’s novel which won the 2010 Singapore Literature Prize. The film is a nuanced rendering of the novel’s central themes of memory, home, and the costs of development, and honours the book’s complex exploration of belonging. The feature film tells the story of Prakash, a retired civil servant who lives with his wife in an old house with a lush garden. Their idyllic days are numbered as the state has acquired their home to make way for a new train line. Unwilling to accept this reality, Prakash resorts to increasingly desperate measures that sour his relationships with his family. When demolition looms and appeals fail, a long-awaited invitation to meet the prime minister offers one final chance to make his plea, but the encounter takes an unexpected turn. Helmed by moving performances and striking visual detail, what unfolds is a poignant meditation on one man’s fight to preserve his home in a city that is increasingly unfamiliar to him. About the Speakers Wong Chen-Hsi is a filmmaker whose works reflect on the effects of territorial transformations, displacement and liminal identities. Her debut feature Innocents premiered in competition at the Rome International Film Festival and won Best Director-Asian New Talents at the Shanghai International Film Festival. City of Small Blessings was developed at Torino FilmLab, Cannes Cinefondation l’Atelier and Venice Production Bridge, and premiered at the Singapore International Film Festival. Her films have screened at many international venues, including the Director’s Guild of America Los Angeles, Anthology Film Archives New York, and La Cinémathèque Française in Paris. Simon Tay is a writer and public intellectual, serving as Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and non-resident Ambassador. His writing spans fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. City of Small Blessings won the 2010 Singapore Literature Prize and Stand Alone was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He is also the author of Asia Alone, Island in the World, and the memoir Enigmas (2024). In 2019, he received the S.E.A. Write Award.