Tak Giu
Tak Giu, an indie short film about Singaporean football, gained a cult-following and gathered 100,000 viewers in 6 months after it was hosted on the internet. Shot with just a camcorder, Tak Giu spread like wild-fire and made waves in the Singaporean football and online community. The 15 min film in Singlish was produced, written and directed by Jacen Tan, who also starred in the film.
The film talks about the lack of soccer fields in soccer crazy Singapore and difficulties of finding suitable fields in land scarce Singapore. It also laments Singaporeans' lack of support for their national soccer and the futility of Singapore's 2010 World Cup goal.
Aside from being mentioned in prominent blogs and internet portals, Tak Giu was featured on local newspapers like The Straits Times, The New Paper, and Today. Jacen Tan was also invited to appear on TV programs like ESPN “Football Crazy”, “LiveWire” on Arts Central, Radio UFM 100.3 on the late Show with DJ Yuling, and News 93.8fm. It was shown in the CINEKATIPUNAN film fest in Philippines.
In November 2005, Jacen Tan’s 2nd short film, Zo Peng, won 2nd place at the Panasonic/MDA Digital Film Fiesta, Short Film Open Category. Jacen Tan has also produced and directed Silverpiece, a music video for popular Singaporean indie band, Lunarin.
Jacen also directed the music video "Silverpiece" for the alternative rock band, Lunarin. Silverpiece was shown in the Cannes Midem '07.
Jacen's new short film, Zo Gang was shown at the 4th Singapore Short Cuts organized by the National Museum of Singapore, The Substation and the Singapore Film Commission. It is also showing at the upcoming 3rd International Short Film Festival Detmold.
It was previously shown at the following festivals:
January 7 - Stasis 9 at Arts House
March 7 - Official premiere at Timbre, by Sinema.sg
April 7 - First Take at Substation
May 7 - Urban Nomad Film Festival at Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan
June 7 - Scope art fair in Switzerland
Sources
http://www.myspace.com/hosaywood
http://www.substation.org/magazine/issue04/ft_TakingTheBait.html
http://www.sgfootball.com/new/news.php?aid=70
http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?query=zo+peng&amount=0&blogid=1
http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2005/03/tak_giu.html