Solos (2007)

Original Title: SOLOS 单
Country of Production: SINGAPORE
Year of Production: 2007
Duration: 68 min 54 sec
Language: No Dialogue
Subtitles: None
Shooting Format: High Definition
Screening Format: Digibeta
Website: http://www.solosmovie.com

Director: Loo Zihan & Kan Lume
Producer: Florence Ang

Cast:

Man - Lim Yu-Beng
Mother - Goh Guat Kian
Dancer - Chiew Peishan

Synopsis:

A man (Lim Yu Beng) and a boy (Loo Zihan) struggle with their mutual sexual desire, all the more because it seems to be a transgression, an anomaly compared to the banal normality of the domestic family unit they try to fit into and live in. The boy’s mother (Goh Guat Kian) festers in her own depression and rage while the boy and man attempt to reach out to each other.

Director’s Statement:

SOLOS is the cumilation of several projects I have embarked on over the past few years. I wasn’t aware that all these pieces of the puzzle fitted together till i started conceptualizing for this feature.

Pre production for SOLOS started in December 2005, Principal Photography was done in June 2006. Editing it however, took close to a year. SOLOS has evolved over the course of the whole production period. What remained was the essence of the characters and the aesthetic which was defined from the very beginning.

I was very fortunate to be able to work with veteran actors like Yu-Beng and Guat Kian, i have always admired their acting. They were my ‘ideal cast’ from the very beginning and part of the reason i fought so hard for this film was because of their commitment to the project. I have learnt so much from working with them, and will be indebted to them, especially Guat Kian - who entrusted her feature film debut to a young filmmaker.

Laurels:

- Premio “Nuovi Sguardi” Award - 23rd Turin International GLBT Film Festival, Italy

- Official Selection for Singapore International Film Festival 2007 (withdrawn from screening), In Competition for Silver Screen Awards

- Official Selection for 12th Pusan International Film Festival - A Window on Asian Cinema Section, South Korea

- International Feature Competition, American Film Institute (AFI) Festival 2007, Los Angeles, USA

- In Competition, 10th Deauville Asian Film Festival, France

- Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2007

- Frameline32 - San Fransisco International LGBT Film Festival 2008

- NewFest - The New York LGBT Film Festival 2008

Quotes & Reviews:

The already daring scenario of a male schoolteacher in love with one of his boy students breaks further conventions with rich formal experimentation in Kan Lume and Loo Zihan’s silent indie film,”SOLOS”. Yanked from a premiere slot in the Singapore festival when state authorities demanded severe cuts of sexual content, gorgeous pic has gone on to a healthy fest launch at Pusan and AFI, with best long-term niche prospects as a gay/art vid curio.

- Robert Koehler, Variety

A dialogue-free and nearly black-and-white film about an affair between a teacher and his student, plus the student’s mother’s despair of losing emotional connection to her son, all presented in a series of one-shot, one-scene takes à la Mizoguchi …… The most striking aspect is the extremely subtle use of color and black-and-white fading into each other that expresses the moods of desire, pleasure, jealousy, betrayal, and disappointment perhaps better than anything else.

- Rowena Aquino, Asia Pacific Arts Magazine

The algebra of cliché holds that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it never fits silence into the equation. In SOLOS, co-directors Loo Zihan and Kan Lume have succeeded at the seemingly impossible task of creating a film that exists in the moments between conversations.

The wonderful cast weaves its way through a stark, washed-out world, but we see brief flashes of full color that almost sear the eyes with their vibrancy. One imagines that if these characters ever spoke, their words would hit our ears, and our hearts, with the same force. Censored in its native Singapore, SOLOS is a film that will challenge anyone with romantic notions of what on-screen love looks like.

- Jon Korn, AFI Fest

Film Stills: